Sticky maple and ginger-glazed pork belly with crackling is the ultimate fuss-free, maximum-result with-minimum-toil Christmas roast. It’s fabulous as a main course, or try it sliced into bite-sized pieces and served as a little nibble before Christmas lunch begins!
Sticky maple and ginger-glazed pork belly with crackling recipe
Ingredients
Pork belly
- 1,5kg pork belly, bone in
- fine salt, to taste
- handful fresh thyme sprigs
- 5 garlic cloves, unpeeled
- 250ml (1 cup) white wine
Maple-ginger glaze
- 100ml maple syrup
- 50ml ginger-preserve syrup (serve the ginger pieces on your next cheeseboard)
- hot English mustard, to serve
- Maldon Sea Salt, to sprinkle
Instructions
Preheat your oven to its hottest setting – this is the secret to super-crunchy crackling! Our hottest setting was 230°C. Place your pork belly in a roasting tray, score the skin and rub the skin with salt. Allow the salt to draw out the moisture, 10 minutes. Blot the skin with paper towel – make sure it is very dry.
Place the pork in the hot oven and roast until the skin becomes golden, puffed and crunchy, about 35 minutes. Remove from oven and turn the oven down to 180°C. Add the thyme, garlic cloves and wine to the roasting tray, return to the oven and roast until the meat is cooked through, 1 hour – 1 hour and 15 minutes.
While the meat cooks, make the glaze by combining all of the ingredients.
To serve, cut the base of the pork belly off to remove the bones (discard these) and slice up. Brush each slice generously with the mapleginger glaze, sprinkle with Maldon Sea Salt and serve with hot English mustard for dipping.
