Tomato Marinade Roast Pork Belly

For the baste I used a basic pasta sauce I often make, well it was actually the remainder of one I had made earlier, but I wanted to try this with the belly.

Marinade

1 tin whole tomatoes

3 cloves garlic

1 small onion

½ tsp cumin

1 tsp mixed herbs

chilli flakes

2 tsp soy sauce

olive oil

75ml red wine

S & P to season

Pork Belly (Size depends on servings, 700g will feed 4 or 5)

Vegetables to roast

white wine

Heat oil and toss the finely chopped garlic and onion in. When this is golden throw all the herbs, soy, tomatoes and wine in. Give it a stir and bring to a simmer. Season and allow to reduce by ½ or more, quite thick is good. Really, cook as you would any rich tomato based pasta sauce, the more time you have, the better to reduce the liquid and intensify the flavours.

This part of the recipe can be prepared in advance and put in the fridge or freezer for later use.

Pork

It is desirable to get the Pork fat to crackle, how far you want the process to go is up to the cook. For a softer crunch you can reduce the length of high temperature cooking at the start of the roasting, keep an eye on it.

Reserve about a third of the marinade.  Use the rest on the meat.

You can scald the fat side with boiling water to assist the crackling process. Personally, I don't know that this is an absolute must, try it both ways! If you do scald it, dry well before continuing.  Rub down the heavily scored fat side with salt and olive oil, you can be fairly liberal with the salt. Work the marinade into the meaty side and rub a little into the fat side, though the salt is the main bit here. The whole piece can be placed in the fridge for several hours, overnight would be ideal. Before roasting a little more salt can be rubbed into the fat to ensure the crackling has crackle!

Roast in an oven at 220 C for 1/2hr (this depends on the oven and how crunchy you like the crackling) then turn the heat down to 165 for a further 1 ½ hours. 

At the point where the oven is turned down add Potatoes, carrots, sweet potato or your other favourite vegetables to roast in the pan.  (If you like these a little more crispy and crunchy, they can be put in at the very start of the roasting, but don't add the wine until you turn the oven down.) These should be cut into hearty, rustic slabs. I added white wine to the pan as well to keep it moist and form a sauce, with the wine put the rest of the marinade over the vegetables. The volumes depends on the pan, you want a good covering, but you don't want to swamp the meat. Cover* Take the lid off for the last 10-15min.

*I'd suggest using a roasting pan with a lid to make this easy, and it also has steaming effect, retaining moisture and delicacy.

Slice the belly and serve with the vegetables and some of the delicious sauce. I'd also suggest a green/garden salad on the side to counter the richness of the dish.

Sweet Spice Roast Chicken

Roasting a chicken isn't a hard task, but it's always good to have a few tasty variations up the sleeve to give variety.  I cooked this up for a Sunday evening.  It's easy enough for an ordinary meal while your pursuing weekend activities, tasty enough for entertaining with a casual dinner; a recipe for when you have plenty of cooking time but are short on preparation time, let's face it, that can be any time.

1 Chicken (Obviously)

Stuffing

Olive oil

1 ½ tbs Balsamic vinegar

1 ½ tbs Soy sauce

30ml sweet vermouth

Generous dash of chilli flakes

1 tsp mixed herbs

½ tsp cumin

½ tsp 5 spice

1 apple, finely sliced

6-8 Kalamata olives, pitted whole

2 cloves garlic, diced finely

1 slice raisin toast, roughly chopped

½ handful parsley, finely chopped

6-8 fine slices of butter

black pepper

*The quantities listed here are for a small chicken, you could adjust these as needed for a bigger, or multiple birds.

Preheat oven to 190 C.

Begin with a generous slug of oil in a mixing bowl, to this add all the stuffing ingredients, apart from the butter and mix well. Toss the butter through last as this is intended to melt through in the cooking process. The mix should be moist to slightly wet, If it is too dry add a little water or wine.

Stuff the chicken and then rub the outside with a little more olive oil, salt and pepper. Transfer to a baking dish and cover with foil.  The foil will hold the moisture in and maximise flavour infusion.

Cooking time is some 2+ hrs, give the bird 15min at 190 then turn the oven back to 155 C. After 1¾ hrs approx remove the foil and allow the chicken to colour for ½hr. Remove from the oven when golden. Keep an eye on things at this stage, as browning time may vary.

Remove the chicken from the pan and place in a warm spot, reduce the juices to make a lovely jus.  The beauty of the relatively slow oven is that the meat stays tender and doesn't dry out, so this really is a low stress recipe allowing you to cook another dish, do the housework or entertain friends. I'd suggest serving with with your favourite roast vegetables and light greens. The versatility is such that a salad would equally suit as an accompaniment.