Danny’s slow roast belly of pork to die for recipe
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Pork Ham Bacon Sausages | 143 comments
Joint of pork belly with skin side down ready for slow roast
We have Sunday Lunch in the evening and Danny usually cooks it. If I have the day off, I can spend hours in the garden and totter in at dusk to a great meal. Perfect.
Last week he cooked the best pork that I have ever tasted. I had bought belly of pork from Fred Fitzpatrick on a whim.
Danny was polite and definitely suspicious when I showed him the thin joint. Belly of pork is a slim, boy racer sort of cut. A rib of small bones and meat that appears to be stingy. Wrong. BOP has loads of meat.
I was working last weekend and arrived home to tantalising smells drifting from the oven.
“I found a great recipe. But didn’t have the ingredients so made up my own and experimented with a new method,” D explained, as he sliced the delicious meat.
The pork had a deep, mellow flavour and the crackling was truly superb. The skin and fat both took starring roles. Proper crackling underpinned by a sparkling melt in the mouth layer beneath. I was not eating ‘fat’ but gently roasted, bite sized pieces of heaven that had transmogrified in the long slow cooking process into something with texture and flavour. I would kill for a decent pork scratching. Danny’s home made version impressed me and after the first forkful of meat I reeled with applause and, I hate to admit it, envy.
Edit Oct 2015: Getting the crackling good and crispy can be a hit and miss affair. Every oven is different. See Sue’s comment below. If it’s rubbery, you can pop it under a low grill for 5 minutes or more but be careful not to let it blacken and burn. I guess it’s best to play safe and score it, and rub on salt and oil in the traditional manner.
Do also consider serving this perfect Yorkshire pudding recipe with this or any roast.
| Danny’s slow roast belly of pork to die for recipe |
- I kilo joint of belly of pork
- 10 leaves off a sprig of rosemary
- 3 small cloves of garlic sliced
- Foil big enough to form a nest under and around the joint
- Place the pork, crackling side down, in roasting pan. Distribute the rosemary and garlic evenly over the base of the belly. Take the foil and press it over the belly to make sure that the herbs will not shift.
- Turn the whole lot over, crackling side up, and form the foil into a snug nest around the joint, leaving the crackling exposed and ensuring that the fat from the crackling will drip into the foil nest.
- Roast at 140c (fan) for 3 hours and then turn down to 130c for another hour (4 hours!) – these are our fan-assisted oven temperatures so you may wish to adjust for a conventional oven, but not by much I think. Maybe +10% maximum.
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I cooked this for the family, and it is delicious and so simple. I will definitely be doing this again. I’m looking forward to varying the herbs to try new flavours – maybe thyme and orange instead of rosemary and garlic?
Belly pork is an all time favourite of mine(as is breast of lamb)
Best from a butcher not a supermarket,the cheap cuts for me are the best!
I like to serve mine very slow roasted with plain boiled spuds(I’m afraid I slather the spuds in butter and some of the fat from the roasting tin and mash them on the plate!)
And a big pile of spring greens.
And you can make excellent gravy in the pan(pour off the fat first)especially if you’ve roasted some veggies in there as well,just pour some water in and let it reduce stirring on a low heat and if you have to thicken it with a little flour,the flavours should be so good you won’t need a stock cube to cheat!
Don’t discard the dripping!
Pour it into a cup,spread it on toast for breakfast with a little salt and a lot of pepper.
Heart attack on a plate but gorgeous!
Or just save it for roasting in,no point wasting it!
Agas,never owned one but used to cook breakfasts on one in a clients kitchen(I’m a bricklayer)she didn’t know how to use it and neither did I but we just figured out which bits did what at what speed(heat)and by the time we finished working there she was doing dinner parties!
She is a Doctor BTW,never cooked before in her life.
Agas are pretty much all different like the old kitchen range.
I think the trick is just to find the bit with the lowest heat for belly pork and the bit with the highest for a good rare roast beef or lamb(yes,I like lamb a bit rare)it is a bit hit and miss but if you live with an Aga you’ll soon figure out it’s foibles.
Hers was too hot in my opinion,always blazing away even in the summer,would boil a full kettle so fast she threw away her electric kettle!
I never tried a steak on it but I just know it would have done a sirloin beautifully!
Rare to medium rare….Mmmmmm!
I also used to toast sarnies on it,not rocket science 😉
Now I’m making myself hungry,had belly pork last night and that dripping should be set by now….time for breakfast!
Hi Shane
I love this recipe too. Now we buy our belly of pork from the local organic meat butcher and it’s even better.
Although we usually turn it into home cured and smoked streaky bacon – this is to die for and we are addicts.
Hi Liz
Sorry to take such a long time to get back to you. Terrific that you enjoyed our BOP recipe.
Really interested in your potato water weed killing tip. Sorry I don’t have a tip to match this!
Hello Lizzie
Thanks for leaving a comment.
Great that you enjoyed our recipe. I love it too.
an excellent recipe. it’s so simple but the results are fantastic.
i’m a fan of your site now. to think it all started with a simple google search for pork belly recipes…
best,
lizzie
Cooked your pork belly for lunch today. I followed your recipe to the letter and the result was a ‘melt-in-the-mouth’ meal. My daughter was at a dinner at Downing College in Cambridge last night and she said pork was on the menu and she said mine was much much better. So for me, a not-very-good cook, that was praise indeed! Thank you and Danny. I’m planning your cauliflower cheese tomorrow – a friend recently told me a bay leaf added to the cooking water takes away the ‘cauliflowery’ smell. It works. I also use the water I’ve cooked potatoes in to kill stubborn weeds in my brick path by the back door. Has anyone else got any similar tips?
Thanks fn,
This dish opened my eyes regarding high heat to get a good start on crackling, we had this dish last night, “Followed the recipe to a tee” and we were just so impressed the crackling was perfect and the meat just so tender absolutely yummo, The only thing I did different was after cooking the pork for 3 hours at 140 deg C then dropped the temp to 130 deg C for the last hour, I only cooked it for a further 30min and then turned the oven off so the meat could rest. As the meat was cooked, we had a 1.5 kg pork of belly. We had gravy with ours, but did not use the juice left over in the pan, its really just fat.
Just beautiful well done and thanks so much for the recipe and we intend on doing this dish regularly, will keep my eye on this site constantly for further recipes.
If I come up with some new recipes will pass them on. Cheers Shane.
Hello Shane
Thanks so much for your recipe and ideas. Much appreciated.
We have two recipes for belly of pork on this site and now we have three. Thank you.
Like most of you I was looking for another recipe to roast / cook a Pork belly. And have stubbled accross this site, I intend to do as the recipe says and see how it turns out, as it sounds absolutely delicious.For myself in the past to get a good crackling is to wipe off all moisture. Then making sure there are good score marks accross the skin and rub in oil and salt, the rule of thumb is to start the cooking process at a high temp say around 220 / 240 deg C for around 30 min. this acts as a 2 process system 1 its seals the meat and 2 gets the crackling off to a good start, then drop the temp. to around 120 – 130 deg C. cooking for around 3 to 4 hours, the meat is tender and the crackling is good.
FYI. A recipe For my last Pork Belly dish. make sure there is good score marks accross skin Place skin side down and slice green apples and prunes on the meat side and sprinkle a little of 5 spice powder and then roll the pork up and truss it (tie it up) wipe all excess moisture and rub in oil and salt pre heat oven to 220 – 240 deg C cook for 30 minutes then reduce temp to 120 – 130 deg C and cook for a further 3 hours. Turned out really nice…
I just wanted to say WOW, I tried this at the weekend and its the best pork I have had in a long time.After reading about people having trouble with the crackling I was a bit worried but I followed the instructions to the letter and had no problems at all the crackling… was sublime.One thing I did do tho, was make sure it was dried with a paper towel and well scored and salted.
Hi i have done this recipe twice now and its just excellent, i used 600 grams and removed it 20 mins early from the oven for perfect results each time, spuds need 1.30 hours with the last 10-20 mins at 180, thanks.