Slow Cooked Pork Belly
This is a great way to cook a delicious piece of meat so that it is as tender as a tender thing.
Ingredients
| - 1 kg pork belly | - 1 cup red wine |
| - 1 tbsp salt | - 5 cloves garlic |
| - ½ cup maple syrup | - 1 onion cut in half and then sliced |
| - sprinkle of white sugar (optional) |
Instructions
Combine maple syrup, wine, salt and smashed garlic cloves in a bowl.
Sear the pork belly, skin side down, in a hot pan to give some colour to the skin. This shouldn’t take more than 5 to 10 minutes.
Grease a slow cooker bowl and place the pork belly in the bottom. Arrange the onion around the meat and then pour over the remaining combined ingredients. Cook on ‘warm’ for approximately 7 hours.
Carefully remove the pork and pour off the liquid into a shallow fry pan for rendering down. Carefully place the pork back in the slow cooker to keep warm.
Reduce the liquid in the pan to a thick consistency (this will take approximately 30 minutes) for a very tasty side sauce which goes well with mashed potatoes or similar.
You may need to decant some of the fat by tipping the pan up slightly so that the mixture stays on the high side and the fat flows to the low side.
(Optional) When ready to serve sprinkle the skin side with sugar and gently brulee with a butane torch to give a golden brown caramelised finish.
Potentially serve with a sweet potato mash and the sauce from the pan.