Pork Belly is a delicious cut of meat. It has a very high fat content, and is best cooked low and slow, so the fat has time to render out, and the result is fantastic crackling, and tender, juicy, melt in your mouth pork.

Ask your butcher for a piece of Pork Belly that’s about 1.6kg to 1.8kg (3.5 to 4 pounds). Skin on, and without any bones. If you can, leave it uncovered in the refrigerator overnight, so the skin can dry out a little.

To prepare the oven, start with a small fire. Heat the oven until the area of the floor that you’re going to place the pan registers around 275F/135C. You want to maintain the temperature in that area for the roughly 2 hours that it will take to cook the pork. The heat in the floor and dome should remain fairly constant and will gradually roast the pork. The convention heat may vary due to the size of the fire, but that, and the gentle flame, will help create the wonderful crackling. Depending on the size of your oven, you should have plenty of variable temperature to work with if you need more, or less, heat throughout the cooking time.

Now that the oven is prepared, let me go through the steps I took.

The first important step. Pour yourself a glass of wine.

Take the Pork Belly out of the refrigerator about an hour before you plan on cooking it.

Next. In a small pan add 1 tbsp black pepper corns, 1 tbsp fennel seeds, and 2 tsp cardamon seeds. Place the pan in the oven. Toasting the spices will draw out their natural flavour. Put them in a mortar and pestle with 1 tbsp flakey seas salt, and grind into a powder (use a spice grinder if you prefer).

Pat the pork dry with some paper towels. Then using a sharp kitchen knife, or clean utility knife, carefully score the skin in the direction you plan to cut the final roast, no more than ¼ inch deep. Try to avoid cutting through to the meat.

Rub the spice mix all over the pork, including into the cuts.

For the gravy. Roughly chop 1 onion, 1 fennel bulb (including some of the stalk), 1 carrot, and 2 or 3 quartered tomatoes. Crush 4 cloves of garlic. Add some sprigs from the fennel, and some thyme. Add them all to your roasting pan. Season with salt, pepper, and add any leftover spice rub. Drizzle over some olive oil and toss everything together.

Place a metal rack over the vegetables, and then place the pork on top of that. Now it’s ready to go into the oven.

Keep an eye on the pork, and rotate is occasionally to be sure it cooks evenly, and so the skin doesn't burn. I did that about every 30 minutes. It should be cooked through after about 2 hours, but if you want to use a meat thermometer, I think the ideal temperature is 160-165F/72-24C. When it’s done remove the pork to a warm dish, and let it rest while you make the gravy.

Add a few pieces of fuel to the fire to bring the temperature up.

Remove as much oil from the roasting pan as possible (there will be a lot*). Return the vegetables to the oven and roast for a few minutes. Add about ½ cup of white wine and reduce that in the oven. Add 1½ cups of chicken stock, return to the oven and reduce by about a third. Strain the gravy into a saucepan and return to the oven while you slice the roasted pork.


The pan is the 13” Pro Saucier with loop handles from Blanc Creatives, at blanccreatives.com
The wine is a 2017 Blanc Fumé de Pouilly, from Louis Benjamin Dagueneau.
The music is “Charango" by Mark Thomas Hannah.

*save the rendered pork fat to roast some potatoes.

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