Pork Belly

⭐ great taste® 2023

A national favourite and a restaurant staple, pork* belly is a fantastic slow-cooking joint that you can enjoy with sensational results at home. It is the delicate sheets of high quality fat that lie in between layers of lean meat, that really set the belly apart from other cuts. As the belly cooks, this lace thin fat naturally renders and bastes the joint, resulting in melt in the mouth pork and that flavour we all know and love. Dry skin from our dry-ageing methods makes for crackling with an unbeatable crunch. 

Chef Val Warner inspires:
"The pork belly is a favourite cut of mine. I'm not one for shying away from fat, so very essential to cooking, yet hounded from the room by the current trend for vanity eating. 

Cooked well, it will be juicy and meltingly tender. However, although the fat content does allow for a long, slow cook, it can actually be overcooked where the meaty fibres become soft and crumbly. I have to say I worry when someone proudly announces their 12-hour slow roast! It’s best to aim for a give and tenderness that retains firmness and structure.

So often celebrated for its crispy skin and rightly so, I'd still recommend having fun with buta no kakuni; the Japanese treatment for braised pork belly. Here the belly meat, fat and skin is all braised until wobbly and luscious, and served in its own thin yet intense broth of pork stock, soya sauce and sugar, and scented with fresh ginger. Lift the lid from the bowl and you’ll be rewarded with an aroma to die for, and a taste that’s even better. Often served with mangetout, and mustard as the condiment. 

Pork curries, such as those found in Myanmar are fiery, red and deep in flavour, that slick of fat a prerequisite to these ferocious offerings. Pork belly makes for a very rich curry to be enjoyed in small amounts, with rice and other accompanying dishes to pick at.

Porchetta is a mainstay across Italy, often served from vans one may easily mistake for ice-cream sellers. Either stuffed, or simply seasoned with herbs, it is rolled, tied, and roasted until crispy. It’s then sliced to end up in bread with various sauces. It's a wonder!

In lean game terrines pork belly is a very useful ingredient to add, perfect for fattening the mix whether coarsely ground or cut to size.

Sitting down to a white tablecloth in a traditional corner of Chinatown, ducks hanging in the window, I will always ask that my rice arrives with a portion of Chinese crispy pork too. Utterly delicious.

For an oriental twist we love a dry rub of five-spice, salt and sugar rubbed into the lean underside and roasting on a trivet over a tray of water.

So to finish on more of a home note, I like to cook pork belly on the bone. Season it with ground fennel and coriander seeds, lemon zest, fresh rosemary and sea salt, then roast it to crisp. Slice, and serve with baked stuffed apples and gravy. The leaking caramelised juices in the tray combined with a little white wine or cider, briefly simmered with little fuss, make for a devastatingly delicious jus.

NOTE: Before cooking, put the belly in the sink on a trivet so that it does not sit in the hot water. Pour a large kettle of boiling water over the skin. This opens the pores. Allow it to cool and then salt generously as this will ensure a wonderful crispness."

great taste® commented:
"This is a beautifully presented joint with a good, crunchy crackling. The judges loved the presentation on the bone. The flavour of the meat was clean and the pig flavour was gentle and in check, making for a very people-pleasing roasting joint.

An attractive piece of pork with a salted topping. The crackling was crunchy with a good layer of tasty fat below. The meat was juicy and tender."

*Tamworth and Middle White pigs are reared outside where they can root around, wallow and exhibit all of their instinctive behaviours. They're matured at their own pace which enables the fat to naturally marble the meat, and gives the pork a superior texture. To maximise the naturally occurring flavour, all our native breed pork is dry-aged on the bone for 3-weeks in our Himalayan salt chamber; this further enhances the rich and distinctive flavour. 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.

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