Jacob’s famous Pork Belly:

Ingredients:

1x Pork Belly (size depending on number of people you are serving – I get mine from the farmers market)
3x White Onions
1x Pint Dirty Apple Juice (or Cider)
2x Tablespoon Salt
2x Tablespoon Pepper

Note: I usually serve this with whole grain mashed potatoes and sautéed spinach with garlic.

It is the preparation and cooking here that make the dish:

Clean pork belly under cool water and dry off the skin side. Take a VERY sharp knife and make straight cuts through the skin and fat, but not into the meat – these will be ‘trenches’ into which we will add the salt and pepper. Set aside to dry while you prepare the roasting pan.

Get at least a 2 inch deep (the juices here will be amazing) roasting pan. Cut white onions in half and place them side by side, 2×3 (similar to the number 6 on a standard 6 sided dice) in the roasting pan – you will be using this to lay the belly on. The belly cannot touch the bottom of the roasting pan and the juices need to stay clear of the meat.

Pour the dirty apple juice (or cider) into the bottom of the roasting pan around the onions. It should form a nice pool. This will steam up and keep everything moist – in addition to making some nice gravy as the fat rolls off the belly and into the juice.

Rub salt and pepper (firmly) into the skin and into your cut trenches. Place the belly onto the onion “colonnade” hovering above the juice (I usually like to rub a few drips of the juice onto the meat before doing this). Preheat oven to full wack (230C). Roast for 15 minutes at this level, then turn down to 160C. Roast for about 3 hours, monitoring the juices. If the juice steams away, add a little water. You do not want to have anything burning badly and ruining the flavour of the meat. Black onions are okay, and so are black juices, just make sure there is no large quantity of smoke. The skin should blister a bit and become crispy. I generally, before serving, like to put the belly under the the Grill (top down heat) on full whack for about 5 minutes to do a last bit of crisping.

The skin will be crispy and salty, and the pork meat juicy.

Serve.

Comments, changes, suggestions are appreciated!