MASTERCLASS: CRISPY PORK BELLY WITH COLCANNON AND CIDER JUS
Since we were both able to order for ourselves in restaurants, without a doubt, crispy pork belly was up there as the most popular dish we chose. As much as we love pork, it’s the crackling that really gets us. That CRUNCH of perfectly rendered crispy skin is worth going to war for! And what goes better with tender pork belly than colcannon?
PREP AND COOK TIME: 4 HOURS, PLUS OVERNIGHT CURINGSERVES: 4
1 x 1.2kg pork belly, deboned
2 tablespoon sea salt flakes, plus extra for salting
1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon fennel seeds, crushed
4 garlic cloves, minced
4 fennel bulbs, quartered
drizzle of olive oil
2 litres milk, plus extra if needed
APPLE CIDER JUS:
300g pork offcuts (ask your butcher for these)
1 large carrot, finely diced
2 celery stalks, finely diced
3 French shallots, finely diced
1 small handful of sage
1 small handful of thyme
1 bay leaf (fresh if available, dried if not)
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 cup apple cider
1 litre veal stock
COLCANNON:
1kg rock salt
4 large desiree potatoes, unpeeled
150ml cream
150g butter
2 salad onions (scallions), finely sliced
1 large handful of kale, central stalks removed and roughly chopped
1 bunch of flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
1. Score the pork skin and rub a tablespoon of salt into the skin. Place on a plate, uncovered, in the fridge and leave overnight to dehydrate.
2. The next day, remove the pork from the fridge and allow to reach room temperature, about 1 hour. Pat the skin dry and resalt with half a tablespoon of salt. Rub the pork flesh with a teaspoon of salt, pepper, the crushed fennel seeds and minced garlic.
3. Preheat your oven to 250°C or as high as it goes.
4. Heat a large deep frying pan over a high heat, add the pork, skin side down, and sear for 1–2 minutes until it begins to turn translucent. Turn and sear each side of the pork to seal in the juices. Remove from the pan.
5. To begin the jus, add the pork offcuts to the same pan and cook on high heat until caramelised, about 5 minutes. Stir in the vegetables and sauté for 5 minutes until they too are caramelised. Add the herbs and garlic and cook for 3 minutes and then deglaze the pan with the cider. Set aside at room temperature.
6. Cover the bottom of a large roasting tin with the quartered fennel, drizzle with olive oil and season with salt. Place the pork, flesh side down, on the bed of fennel and roast for 30 minutes. Remove the pork from the oven and reduce the oven temperature to 160°C.
7. Pour enough milk into the roasting tin, making sure it does not come into contact with the skin, to reach two-thirds of the way up the meat. Return to the oven and roast for 2 hours until the pork meat is falling apart. Remove the pork from the tin and rest, under foil, for 30 minutes.
8. Meanwhile, for the colcannon, spread the rock salt in a roasting tin. Place the potatoes on the bed of rock salt and bake for 90 minutes on 160°C with the pork or until the potatoes are soft and fluffy inside. Halve, remove the flesh and pass through a drum sieve into a saucepan. Add the cream, butter, onion, kale and parsley and season to taste. Keep warm until required.
9. While the pork is resting, pass the meat juices from the roasting tin through a sieve into a jug, making sure to leave the milk solids behind.
10. To finish the jus, place the pan over high heat and slowly, a ladle at a time, stir in the stock and the sieved meat juices. Reduce by half each time before adding more liquid. Once all the liquid has been incorporated and the jus is reduced to around 2 cups, sieve into a clean saucepan and keep warm over low heat.
11. Just before you are ready to plate up, place the pork, skin side up, under the grill and cook until the skin bubbles. Slice the pork into juicy chunks and serve with the colcannon to the side and the jus in a jug.
STEVE As you know, my dad is Irish and he never stopped craving the old-school dishes he grew up with. He used to get my mum to put a little boiled cabbage through his mash. That’s essentially what it is and that’s my first memory of it, albeit not a very good one. Who likes boiled cabbage? These days mashed potato is much richer, full of butter and cream, and the vegetables that go through it are a little fresher, so it has a completely different feel to it.
WILL And how do we achieve the perfect crispy skin on the pork while keeping the meat moist and tender?
STEVE That, my friend, is what this masterclass is all about. We take two completely opposite approaches – we poach the meat in milk and do everything we can to dehydrate the skin before it goes in the oven. We also cook using two different temperatures.
WILL Technical stuff!
STEVE Not so much, striving for crispy skin on anything you cook requires you to draw the moisture out of the skin before it comes in contact with heat, otherwise you will create steam. The heat change is used early on to kickstart the crackling process before we go for a low and slow approach.