Drunken Belly Pork Recipe at MyDish

Drunken Belly Pork

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Method

  • Pre heat oven to 150 C
  • Score the skin of the pork belly with a sharp knife if not supplied already done. Take a high sided baking tray and chop onions into fine slices. Scatter over the base of the tray. Add bay leaves, dessert spoon of black peppercorns and lay the pork belly (unrolled it if supplied tied up) over the mixture.

  • Add cider up to just below the level of the skin and place in the oven on a low shelf for a minimum of 3 hours (should be ok for up to 5 hours.) You can now go for a walk or to the pub for a couple. Check hourly after 2 hours and if the pork skin is getting too brown then place a piece of kitchen foil loosely over the meat.

  • Remove from oven and place meat on a plate. Strain the cider and meat juices into a saucepan through a sieve. Discard the onions, peppercorns and bay leaves. Place the saucepan on one side and leave to cool.

  • Turn the oven up to 200 C.

  • If serving roast potatoes put them in now parboiled. Whilst the meat is still warm turn it so skin side is down and pull the ribs out- the bones will come out easily and can be discarded (if there are no bones then disregard this step.) Placing the meat skin side up, take a sharp knife and cut the skin from the meat in one piece. Place the skin on a baking tray, salt and place in the oven on a low shelf beneath the roast potatoes – check every 5 minutes after the first 10 minutes as it can go from perfect crackling to burnt very quickly. Once crispy remove from the oven and leave to cool whilst the potatoes finish roasting.

  • Once the skin is removed wrap the pork in foil and leave to one side. Put the juices from the plate it was on into the saucepan of cider sauce.

  • The sauce mixture needs skimming as there will be a fair amount of fat from the pork floating on top- use a spoon and lift the fat layer off and discard. (Don’t recommend using the fat to baste the roast potatoes- it gives them an unpleasant flavour.)

  • After skimming the sauce of fat, boil and use gravy browning or arrowroot/cornflour to thicken the sauce and you will have a sweet cider based gravy to serve with a roast dinner.

  • Serve the pork cut across the grain of the meat in slices – if you cut along the grain even though the pork is very tender you are making it stringy. Sauce goes very well with winter vegetables and mash/roast potatoes. Remember to serve a piece of the crackling on top of the meat as a garnish. The meat keeps and reheats well in foil in a low oven.
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    Ingredients

    • 2 Cooking onions
    • 1 litre Dry cider
    • 1-2 KG Pork belly piece with skin on
    • 6 Bayleaves
    • 1-2 tsp Arrowroot or cornflour (optional)
    • 2-4 tsp Gravy browning (optional)
    • 1 tablespoon Black peppercorns

    By Views 1626  Added Tue Dec 7 2010


    Easiest "roast" dinner ever- bang it in the oven and have the rest of your Sunday free- provides a very tasty gravy as well and fault free crackling every time.