After Ear to the Ground last night a number of people have asked for the recipe for this and also for the Raspberry Clafouti. I’m making the clafouti again this weekend, so I’ll take pics of that. I don’t know when I’ll have pork belly again, so I’ll just post the recipe anyway without pics - I’ll add them when I make it next.

Pork belly is kind of cheffy food, in that you see it on restaurant menus quite a lot but not many people cook it at home. I suspect that its popularity with chefs is not just because it’s so tasty but also because of the healthy profit margin to be had, it’s a really cheap cut.

I don’t know why more people don’t cook it, because it’s very easy to do. It does require time but only in the oven, preparing it is the work of a couple of minutes and could hardly be easier. It’s a perfect dish for a day when you’ll be in the house but too busy to cook anything complicated.

Here’s how I did the one on the TV, and this method is the one I’ve found gives the crispest and most delicious crackling. Who doesn’t love good crackling?

Ingredients

This amount will feed 6 people very well.

• 1 kg of Pork Belly
• 3 Onions
• About a pint of Chicken Stock (homemade is best but cubes are fine)
• Olive oil
• Salt

Get your butcher to score the skin on the pork for you, it’s a bit of a pain to do at home.

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Cooking the Pork

Sprinkle the skin surface of the pork with quite a lot of salt and leave it aside for about 10 minutes. This will draw out a surprising amount of water, which you can then mop off with some kitchen paper. Dry the skin very thoroughly - the dryer the skin, the better the crackling.

While the pork is set aside, peel and halve the onions, and arrange them cut side down in a roasting pan in two rows.

Smear the skin surface of the pork with olive oil fairly generously. Sit the pork belly on top of the onions, so they act like a trivet holding the meat above the surface of the tray.

Pour chicken stock into the tray to a depth of about 1 inch or a little more - take care not to let any of the stock get on the skin side of the pork.

Put the meat into the fully preheated oven and immediately turn the heat down to 150°C, or 140°C if you have a fan oven.

You are now basically done for 5 hours.

Just check occasionally to ensure that the stock has not evaporated away, and top up with water or more stock if it looks a bit low. You don’t want the pan to dry out. Do not baste the pork at all, that’s really important, again for the crackling. Water or any watery liquid is the enemy of crisp crackling.

After 5 hours take the pork from the oven, remove to a plate and drain the liquid in the tray into a jug. Carefully slide a knife between the crackling and the meat and remove the crackling to a warm place (I leave it on a plate on top of the cooker).

Put the rest of the pork back into the oven in the now fairly dry roasting tin, skin side up, while you make the gravy.

Making the Gravy

All the time the pork was cooking, it was releasing fat and juice over the onions, which are now beautifully caramelised, and into the stock, which will now be dark brown and unctuous.

By the time you get back to it, the fat in the pan juices will have started to settle on the top of the jug. Spoon some of it away if there is too much.

Put the remaining juice/stock into a blender along with two of the halved onions and blend until smooth. Taste and season with salt and pepper if you think it needs it, though it probably won’t. That’s it. No need to thicken, the blended onion will have made it thick enough and if it hasn’t just add another one and blend again.

To Serve

Cut the pork in thick slices. Pour over some gravy. Break up the crackling along the score lines and serve on top of the pork.

Yum!

Tags: Gravy, Pork
Posted in Recipes | 11 Comments »

Just over 2 weeks ago I spent an odd, but enjoyable, day cooking for the cameras.

The deal was that I’d cook a meal for six, two courses, using locally sourced ingredients for under €15.

I wasn’t overly daunted by the budget, but definitely was daunted when told who I’d be cooking for - members of the ICA. Yikes!

You can watch the results tonight on RTE 1 at 7.00pm on Ear to the Ground.

The tall elegant lady in the picture is the charming and gorgeous presenter of the programme, Helen Carroll. The tubby midget is me. The nice window blind belongs to my good friend Sheila, who kindly stepped in when I looked around my own kitchen trying and failing to imagine six diners and a camera crew fitting in.

I cooked pork belly, because I like it and it’s cheap. That was before the whole pork thing happened, so it was not a political choice or anything, but I’m really glad I chose it now.

It certainly shows up the benefits of shopping locally. All the main ingredients for the meal came from less than 5 miles from my house.

The pork belly came from a local pig, reared by Pat Murphy of Johnswell, a small local producer, and was processed in a local abbatoir owned by Gerry O’Brien, my local butcher. I practically knew her (and it was a her) and she had never eaten any dodgy food.

The veg and the berries for dessert (Raspberry and Almond Clafouti) were grown by Joe Pucell in Dunmore.

And to my great relief, the lovely women from the ICA ate up with relish.

Tags: Ear to the Ground, TV food
Posted in TV | 5 Comments »

I’m just back from a week in Florence, a wonderful blur of bright sunny days, old streets, busy markets, stunning art and fabulous food. This was my first holiday in years without family, there was just Sabrina and I, on a proper grown-up holiday, and I can highly recommend her as an excellent travelling companion. We’re still friends, narry a cross word spoken, and with plans to repeat the exact same holiday in a year’s time.

The pic is of the wonderful Monna Lisa Hotel were we stayed, it’s actually taken from just outside the door of our room. And yes, it’s every bit as nice as it looks.

As you might expect, food played a major role in this excursion. I’m just left with an impression of wonderful food, from the vast buffet breakfast every morning to perfect coffees for €1 each everywhere we went.

Delicious pizza in Il Pizzaiuolo, a small restaurant run by a Neopolitan which is so (deservedly) popular that you need a reservation even on a Monday night.

Gilda’s Bistro, with its mismatched antique glasses and crockery, where the handsome and charming Umberto fed us unctuous cous cous, dotted with tiny meatballs, which he’d prepared specially for an anniversary party.

The feather light porcini soufflé produced as a foretaste of a perfect meal (in my case stuffed squid on spinach puree followed by hare rissolles and an indulgent dessert of chestnut roulade) at Cantina Barbagianni.

One morning I woke at what I thought was 7.30am and decided to go for a walk. Outside I realised it was actually 5.30am - so ended up wandering the narrow streets of a still sleeping city, having coffee with the stall holders who were just setting up in the Mercado Centrale, the Florentine version of Cork’s English Market, before sitting completely alone watching dawn begin to break over the Duomo, munching on a pre-breakfast of beautifully fresh walnuts and pistachios bought from the market.

I’m telling you, you could go alone to Florence and have the most romantic holiday of your life!

The hotel manager threw up his arms in horror when I asked for directions to the local Lidl: “You are in Firenze and you want visit Lidl?!”. Nonetheless I hopped on the number 6 bus and went. It’s much the same as Lidl here, with fewer vegetables (surprisingly), more pasta and better cheese (unsurprisingly) and all the familiar products about 15-20% cheaper accross the board.

This wine was an incredible €1.29, and others were similarly cheaper, but I suppose we can largely blame the high levels of duty here for that, rather than Lidl.

Pics from Florence later, when I get them organised.

Posted in Eating Out | 6 Comments »