Video Production: Herman Lensing
Serves 6-8
Pork Belly
4 onions, sliced
4 cloves garlic
1 handful fresh sage
250 ml chicken stock
2,5 kg pork belly, on the bone –ask your butcher to score the skin for you
15 ml baking powder
30 ml fennel seeds
salt and freshly ground black pepper
Pickled Pink Lady® apples
2 x 330 ml bottles cider
125 ml apple cider vinegar
210 g (250 ml) castor sugar
250 ml water
6 Pink Lady® apples
PORK Place the cider, vinegar, and water in a medium-sized saucepan. Add sugar. Stir the mixture over low heat until the sugar has dissolved. Increase the heat and boil for 10 minutes. Peel the Pink Lady® apples but leave the stalks intact. Half and remove core of each apple with melon baller. Place in hot pickle liquid and let it simmer for 5 minutes. Turn off heat and let apples cool down in liquid.
APPLES Preheat the oven to 160 °C. Throw the onions, garlic, sage and stock in a roasting pan and place the pork belly on top, skin-side up. Sprinkle the baking powder over the pork belly and rub it into the skin with your fingertips. Scatter the fennel seeds over the top. Season well with salt and pepper. Place the uncovered pan in the hot oven and roast for 2 hours or until the skin (crackling) is puffed up. Keep a close eye on the liquid in the roasting pan – if it evaporates too quickly, add more stock. Increase the oven temperature to 180 °C and roast for another 15 minutes until the crackling is golden brown.