Recipe: Slow-roasted pork belly with fennel and garlic

[highlyeccentric]

nineveh_uk expressed interest in the pork recipe I mentioned yesterday. As the Big Red Book ("In the Kitchen" by Campion and Curtis) is out of print and very difficult to find second hand (might be easier outside Aus, actually - the only copies I can find are not in Aus, and the shipping costs significantly more than the original book did), I present you, a recipe using quince jam.


This recipe is: Uh... low on hot stove hovering? Depending on what you prepare as your vegetable sides, it's pretty good for walking away and multi-tasking.
This recipe could be: adapted to chicken, I suspect; made on different roasting cuts of pork.
This recipe can't be: done in a slow-cooker without losing the delicious crackling
This recipe requires: an oven (although it's pork belly: if you do non-oven sides, and scale it down, you could probably fit it in a benchtop convection unit); a blender for the quince aoili; time



For the pork
4 cloves of garlic
1 tbsp fennel seeds
1 tbsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil
1.5 kg pork belly, skin scored


1. Heat oven to 220 c.
2. Crush or finely chop the garlic. Mix together with fennel seeds, salt, and oil. Rub over the skin of the pork, massaging into the flesh. Set aside for at least an hour.
3. Place pork in a baking tray, skin side up, and add enough water to half-cover the meat. Cook for 30 min, or until the skin crackles.
4. Lower the heat to 180 c, and cook for a further 2-2.5 h (adjust proportionate to weight of pork). Add more water as it evaporates.
5. Remove pork from oven. If the skin isn't crispy enough, remove in one piece and place on a cooking rack over the baking tray and return to oven.
6. Slice and serve with Quince Aioli

Quince Aioli
3-4 cloves of garlic, peeled
250g quince paste
2/3 cup olive oil
1-4 to 1/3 cup lemon juice
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Warm the quince paste if, as ours seemed to be, it is hard and stiff.
2. In a blender/food processor/thingy you'd make pesto in, combine garlic, quince paste, and most of the oil.
3. Once it's starting to come together as a paste, add the lemon juice and remaining oil, adjusting to a texture that suits you. Blitz in salt and pepper.

If you don't have a food processor thingy, I suspect warming quince paste and mixing it together with toum (lebanese garlic sauce) and oil would be about the same effect, and less work than the fork-mashing and whisk-brandishing method that is given in the Big Red Book.

Bafflingly, the Big Red book gives this recipe twice: once as is, and once with an accompaniment of Catalan Potatoes. I assume this is a quirk of the Big Red Book being a "best of" Campion and Curtis' previous books.

Other savoury quince recommendations from the Big Red Book (which I have not tried: when I was living in Aus a decade ago, quinces and quince products were both unfamiliar and way out of my price range. In Europe, meat was much more of a luxury. Currently, my partner has introduced me to roast pork, and possesses a stash of quince paste pots bought for Occasions, upon which I may prey): consider Proscuitto-wrapped pork fillet with roasted quinces, or, sticking with quince paste, Moroccan lamb with quince glaze.

Comments

[nineveh_uk]

Thank you so much, and for the photos of the other two. It sounds fabulous, and acquiring a small blender thingy is already on the list. Definitely one for the autumn.