This sticky maple and ginger-glazed pork belly with crunchy crackling and hot English mustard is the ultimate fuss-free, maximum-result with-minimum-toil roast. It’s fabulous as a main course, or try it sliced into bite-sized pieces and served as a little nibble before lunch begins!
Sticky maple and ginger-glazed pork belly with crunchy crackling and hot English mustard
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.
ALSO SEE: Gooseberry-roasted pulled pork buns
Gooseberry-roasted pulled pork buns
Recipe by Claire Ferrandi
