Experiments in Pork!

So Sunday we invited our friends round for a roast. I have only ever cooked roast chicken before with a smokey honey gravy that Rich loves. This time though I decided to be brave and branch out into doing a roast with pork belly.

I am one of those cooks who enjoys looking through photos in recipe books and online then takes a few ideas from several recipes and then experiments, mostly it works. So I laid the pieces of pork on top of chopped chunks of shallots, apples, sage and thyme leaves and rubbed oil, salt and pepper into the skin and poured vintage cider in the bottoms. 

Anyway to cut a long story short it was a complete success, crispy crackling all over and because I slow roasted it, tender meat to boot! To make the gravy I blitzed the roasted apple and shallots under the meat and added more cider and some pork stock to give it a zingy appley flavour that complimented the meat nicely. Definitely impressed with how easy I found to cook with this cut and will be trying a Chinese style flavour very shortly to go with some thick udon noodles. I think I may be slightly obsessed with food... :\  Guests were very happy and we are all still full today...I don't think I will eat again...oooh although sushi for lunch sounds tempting...

Half way through the process, looking at this photo is making me drool

yes that is Yorkshire pudding with roast pork, Rich is an obsessive...