I can tell when someone really knows me when they bring Pork Belly to my housewarming as a gift. Thanks to Lillian and Josh, I got to make an attempt at cooking this delicious food. Honestly, at first, I wasn’t too sure. When I took out the pork belly and cut it up, however, there was SO much fat on it that I was wondering if it would even be edible. Oh how naive of me!
Lillian told me it was salted pork belly (which sent me to Google, only to find out that brining is customary for pork belly and doesn’t impact the preparation… shrug… okay!
I found a recipe that sounded good and mixed pork with fruit (basically, I love just about anything with warm fruit). I put it all together and hoped for the best.
While I’m sure I could have poured off the rest of the fat from the pork, I decided it was much more tasty sounding to use it to cook the veggies in. And OH was it good! I had leftover citrus cauliflower (it’s yellow and smaller) and mushrooms to play with. SOOOO good.
I also had some leftover yummy pasta. So the plate was delicious AND colorful.
Holy crap did it turn out well! I think this may be one of my favoritist things I’ve ever made. I’m sure it’s terrible for me, but I could eat this every single day. In fact, my mouth is watering for it right now.
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RECIPES
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Ingredients:
- 6 slices of belly pork
- 4 medium cooking (tart) apples, peeled, cored and quartered (I didn’t peal mine since I love roasted apples with skin)
- 2 tbsp plain flour (All purpose)
- 1 1/4 cup cider
- salt and pepper
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350
- Fry the pork in a frying pan until crisp on both sides.
- Remove from the pan with tongs and arrange in a baking dish. Surround with the apple quarters.
- Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of the fat from the frying pan. (or use the rest for delicious veggies!)
- Add the flour and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes.
- Gradually stir in the milk or cider and bring to the boil.
- Add salt and pepper, then pour this sauce over the pork and apples.
- Bake in a preheated moderate oven (350°F) for 35 to 45 minutes.
