Dry-cured Smoked Pork Belly

Dry-cured porkiness* for maximum flavour and dryness, lightly smoked over beechwood for complexity, and unsliced for increased versatility. Delicious chunkily-diced and crisped in a carbonara or glazed whole with mustard and brown sugar for a quick ham. Perfect alongside Christmas Cockerel or Trimmed Rib of Beef.

Chef Valentine Warner inspires:
"I’m a huge fan of boiled smoked bacon, and that's essentially what this dry-cured smoked pork belly is; an appetising chunk of unsliced streaky bacon. Whilst lardons can be bought pre-cut, in most instances I buy a hunk of dry-cured smoked pork belly and cut them myself as it allows me to have them as dainty or chunky as pleased. Easily frozen for long-keeping or stored in the fridge it will keep some 3-4 or more weeks due to the salting and smoking. What’s more, and when not cut into lardons, I love to poach a large bit of bacon and have it sliced as a petit salé with lentils vinaigrette or with parsley sauce as one would ham.

Here are my top two recipes for one of my very favourite poached meats. 

Poach your belly bacon with some herbs such as thyme and rosemary and maybe a halved onion. Poach gently for two hours or so or until the tip of a knife slides easily through the skin.

In the meantime finely dice two peeled carrots, two celery sticks  and a little garlic, and sauté. all together with a little chopped fresh thyme. Boil some Puy lentils until tender and then combine with the sautéed vegetables. 

Make a delicious tangy salsa verde with capers, a little raw finely diced and rinsed shallot, lots of fresh parsley and a bit less tarragon and dill. Add a generous spoon of  Dijon mustard, a heavy splash of red wine vinegar and more olive oil. 

Chop up the boiled onion flesh and add it to the lentils as well. Warm the lentils gently, then turn the green sauce through them. Lift the ham from the hot stock. Carve two slices per portion and lay on the dressed lentils.

Another delicious method is to poach the smoked belly surrounded with a scrubbed carrot each, a length of celery, a whole shallot in its skin, a small turnip each and a chunk of swede. Poach all together with a few aromatics such as bay and peppercorns.

In place of milk incorporate the delicious stock into a roux of butter and flour that you’d use as the base of a white sauce. The consistency wants to be only fractionally thicker than pouring double cream. Stir in a little grated cheddar as seasoning with a good spoon of Dijon mustard. In a blender blitz the sauce with handfuls of fresh parsley until it’s a vivid green rather than an old school pale sauce with khaki flecks in it. Vibrant and velvety is the desired result. Scratch in a little nutmeg, and check the seasoning.

Spoon this bright green sauce onto a plate and then lay on top your vegetables and slices of poached smoked."

*Native breeds, like the Tamworth pig, are prized for their exceptional depth of flavour. Tamworth pigs are reared outside where they can root around, wallow, and exhibit all of their instinctive behaviours. Swaledale Dry-cured Smoked Pork Belly is Always Fresh Never Frozen®, butchered to order, vacuum-packed, and shipped in recyclable packaging to arrive safely insulated and ready to enjoy.