Sous vide pork belly with beetroot sauce

The final dish

Another dinner party – another set of quite edible recipes

The starter of this particular dinner was (heavily) inspired by a dish I ate at The Gurnard’s Head, Cornwall, one of my families favorite restaurants (and pretty reasonably priced for the lovely food they consistently cook). The starter is a small portion of pork belly served with beetroot sauce, crackling crumbs and pork jus. Unfortunately due to the involved nature of the dish, its nice to have about 3-4 days warning to get ready, as the recipe will explain. I’ll break it down into bits for clarities sake.

Pork belly: Start ~ 3-4 days before, Serves ~8 just

Ingredients:

• 1Kg pork belly (more would be better for feeding 8 for starter)
• 300g Salt
• 2 Sprigs Thyme
• 1 Sprig lavender
• 1/2 Sprig Sage
• 1/2 Star anise
• 1 Allspice
• 1 Juniper berry
• 4 Black pepper corns

Notes on ingredients:

The pork belly should be off the bone, with the skin taken off and reserved. Any butcher should do this for you. Thicker belly is better, you get more meat and more point.

The herbs are mostly arbitrary, just to infuse a little flavor while curing, however I like lavender with pork and thyme is classic.

Method:

1. Combine 2 litres of water with the salt and herbs in a pan and bring to a simmer for 10 minutes to infuse herbs.
2. Take the brine off the heat and remove the herbs.
3. Wait until the water is under 30 degrees then add to the pork in a pot (tupperware is really handy for this). I pushed the pork under the water with a couple of pots/jars against the lid.
4. This needs to be refrigerated for ~48 hours to cure.
5. Once the 48 hours is up, pour off the brine and replace with fresh water and refrigerate for ~2 hours.
6. Repeat the fresh water replacement/refrigeration a couple more times to clean some of the salt from the meat.
7. Remove the pork and wash it then slice it into bits small enough to fit into bags. I (probably unwisely) use ziplock bags, so the pieces have to be smaller than ~150x150mm. The pieces should then be bagged with a spoonful of butter. I drive the air off by immersing the bottom of the bags into water and seal them.
8. The bagged pieces should then be immersed in a water bath for 24 hours, set at 72 degrees.
9. Once cooked the pork belly should be unbagged (the juices need not be saved) and cut into portions: for nice thick belly small bits of around 40-50mm square and the thinner bits into a larger rectangle.
10. These bits can have the surface dried in a low oven for 10 minutes to make them a little less wet looking.
11. Just before serving these should have the thinner fat sheet cut off (usually the bottom) and then it is seared in some oil. This seared face is to be served up.

Beetroot puree:

Ingredients:

• 4 Beetroot
• 1 Red onion
• A splash of balsamic vinegar
• Thyme
• Olive oil

Method:

1. Top and tail the beetroot and wash them then place on a baking tray with some oil and thyme.
2. Cook at a medium (170 degree) for 30-40 minutes, or until the skin starts to bubble.
3. Peel the beetroot and chop.
4. Chop a red onion and fry down with some oil.
5. Add a splash of balsamic vinegar and the beetroot and fry until the balsamic has reduced.
6. Blend until really smooth, adding water to loosen the puree to a custard like consistency.

Crackling crumbs (needs 24 hours):

Ingredients:

• Reserved skin from pork belly
• Salt
• Oil

Method:

1. Trim any excess fat off the back of the skin with scissors.
2. Cover the skin in salt and place in a freezer bag and refrigerate for 24 hours.
3. Wash the skin and dry then place the skin in fresh water for 5 minutes.
4. Remove from the water and dry throughly (roll with rolling pin in between kitchen towels is a good method).
5. Score the surface of the skin and cut into ~2inch strips.
6. Cover a baking tray with oil and place the skin on it and grill/cook in a hot oven (+220C) until it is crackled thoroughly. Allow it to color but not too much.
7. Remove from the tray and dab off the oil with paper towels while it cools a little.
8. Place the crackling in a bag or in the paper towel and break into small pieces around 3-5mm across with a rolling pin or a meat cleaver (allows better control over broken up vs crushed).
9. Reserve

Pork Jus:

Note:

This was largely pointless and was lost in the dish, but was extremely porky and a good stock. Further reduction/a thickener would have made it stand out.

Ingredients:

• 1.5Kg pork bones
• 2 celery sticks
• 2 onions
• 1 leek
• 1 large carrot

Method:

1. Cut the onions and wilt them down with some oil.
2. Add the pork bones and fry down for a little while, until they start to brown.
3. Add the chopped celery sticks, leek and carrot.
4. Cover with water and bring to a boil
5. Boil for an hour or so.
6. Remove the large pieces and strain the remaining stock.
7. Filter the stock through a paper towel lined sieve.
8. Reduce by 4 or until it starts to thicken.
9. Reserve

Plating up:

To plate up, spread some beetroot puree onto a pre-warmed plate. Sprinkle a teaspoon or two of crackling crumbs over the plate. Place the pork belly on the beetroot puree with the seared side up. Run a teaspoon of pork jus round the edge of the whole thing (or if the jus is too runny, flood the rest of the plate with it, itll look messy but one might pick up on the flavor).

Analysis:

This dish was lovely, I wish there had been more pork for each person: plates were clean. If one cuts the pork up too much too early the warping it seems to go under when cooked means that the pieces have to be re-squared before serving, which wastes valuable meat. The pork jus should have either been left out or thickened significantly. The pork was melt in the mouth and salty and tasty. Best course, apparently, and I agree.

Brined Belly

Belly In the brine

Belly in the waterbath at 70C

Pork bones cooking down

Crackling crumbs

Beetroot prepped for oven