Chewing the fat

During my younger years I always hated the taste and texture of fatty meat.  The prospect of pork chops or the impending gastronomic doom inspired by roasted lamb used to fill me with dread.  

Nowadays I have conditioned myself into liking certain types of fattier cuts.  I love the way oxtails melt into an oozing, unctuous gravy and I adore a slow-cooked rack of ribs coated in some kind of overly sticky sauce.  If I am in a butchers and I see a nice slab of pork belly I cannot ignore its beguiling charm and always succumb to purchasing a large lump.  Today was no exception.

Pork belly is rather in-vogue these days, enjoying a culinary renaissance mainly propagated by celebrity chefs endorsing it as a "cheap cut".  It's around 8-9 quid a kilo now (about twice the price if you tried to buy it, say 18 months ago) and although it doesn't aspire to the dizzying heights of a kilo of fillet steak it is no longer the 4 quid meal it once was.  Regardless of its hike in price I still buy it.  

A kilo is rather a generous amount for 2 people, but you can use it up the next day cold.  When I buy pork belly I look for the following:

•   I want a degree of rigidity to my meat.  Floppy belly implies an intensively reared animal that didn't get to move around much during its pitiful existence.  Floppy belly also means it will shrink quite a lot during the cooking process as it is probably rather a watery, flabby hunk of meat - so try to avoid anything that looks a bit wobbly.
•   I look for a good fat to meat ratio.  Ok, this is a fatty cut of meat but I have in the past bought overly fatty belly and this ruins the meal for me.  I like to have a decent amount of meat otherwise you might as well have bought lardo.
•   I prefer the belly to be off the ribs.  With the ribs in you can seriously skew your cooking times.
•   I look for a about a thumbs thickness of subcutaneous fat beneath the skin.  The skin itself gives great crackling but its the fat underneath that renders into a delicious stratigraphy of fatty goodness.

I took a picture of the 1kg piece I bought.

But - how do I cook it I hear you cry?  For me the perfect way to cook belly is with garlic and fennel (seeds not the vegetable).  It works brilliantly using just salt and pepper, but I like to jazz it up a little.  Here's how to cook it:

•   In a pestle and mortar grind a tablespoon of fennel seeds to a fine powder.  Add some salt and 4-5 plump garlic gloves and grind to a smooth(ish) paste.
•   Apply this paste to the meat side only - leave the skin clear.
•   Finely grind some sea salt, again, about a tablespoon and apply this to the scored skin.  Rub it in as much as possible.  
•   Leave the joint out at room temp for 30-60 mins.
•   Using kitchen roll wipe the skin surface clean of most of the salt.  Try to get it as dry as possible.
•   Heat the oven to 240 celcius.  Add the joint of belly.
•   Leave it for 15-20 mins, then drop the temperature to 140 celcius.  

•   Leave to cook for 2 hours.  You can increase the temperature at the very end of cooking to crisp up the crackling if needed (but I rarely need to do this).

 You can serve this with some greens (spring greens or steamed pointed cabbage) and some sauteed potatoes.

I will update later this evening with a picture of the finished masterpiece.