Cured slow-cooked Black Pig pork belly
Ingredients
(serves six)
100g fine salt
100g caster sugar
25g ground cumin
25g ground cinnamon
2.5kg side of belly pork, boned and trimmed of rind
For pickled plums
6 firm plums
200ml water
200ml white wine vineger
10 peppercorns
2 bay leaves
4 star anise
salt and pepper
50ml melted pork/duck dripping
For seared onions
10 spring onions, halved lengthways
20ml olive oil
50ml vegetable nage or water
salt and pepper
1 tbs mixed tarragon mint cress
Method
Begin preparing pork 48 hours before serving by mixing salt, caster sugar, cumin and cinnamon. Cover pork belly with mixture. PLace on tray and cure for 24 hours.
Next day preheat ovem to 180°C. Wash off salt mix and place on a roasting tray. Place in oven for one hour. Turn oven down to 150°C and cook for another two hours basting every 30 minutes. Obnce cooked, allow to cool and place in fridge overnight.
Also 24 hours before service, pickle plums. Place ingredients into a pan except plums and bring to the boil. Place plums in an airtight container and pour over liquor, put on lid and leave in fridge for 24 hours.
Make a dressing by reducing half plum liauor until it becomes a syrup, then mix it with 50ml of either pork or duck fat
On day of service, cut pork into rectangles (saving the trimmings to make a soup or sprinkled over eggs at breakfast), and pan fry until crisp.
Sear onions in a nonstick pan in the olice oil. Season, then add vegetable nage or water and allow to reduce. REmove from pan and serve immediately.
To serve, place seared onions on left of plate and arrange pork belly across onions. Slightly warm plums in liquor and mix them with tarragon, mint and cress. Place half on right hand side of the plate and the rest around the pork belly.
Ton finish, pour dressing over the belly pork.