Add your favourite cider to this recipe to marinate the pork belly, along with a fool safe crackling method!

What you’ll need

• 1 kg (2.2lb) pork belly
• Rock salt
• 300 ml pear cider
• Thyme
• Paprika
• Pepper

EQUIPMENT

• Roasting pan
• Sharp kitchen knife/box cutter

Cooking process

The best way to ensure tender pork meat with a layer of salty, crispy crackling is to do the quick heat blast method and then reduce for the remainder. Crank up your oven as high as it can go, which is usually around the 250c (480f) mark for 30 minutes, the high heat will allow the skin to begin the process of crackling. The majority of the crackling will happen at this stage. Keep an eye on the pork, it should bubble and brown but you don’t want it to burn! Then reduce heat to 180c (355f) for an additional 50 minutes.

This method has helped me achieve perfect crackling each time, if however you feel the skin requires additional crispiness after cooking: simply place skin alone (skin is easy to remove from the meat) under the grill for 5 minutes. You don’t want to overcook the meat itself, this way you can allow the meat to rest while you grill the crackling seperately.

Tips

• Use a Stanley knife to score the rind. The rind can be a bit tough to cut through with a kitchen knife, you can ask your butcher to score it for you or a Stanley knife will come in handy if you have one on hand.
• Take the time to let the skin dry out. After layering the skin with salt and marinating the meat, leave the pork, uncovered in the fridge for at least 2 hours.
  I usually do it the night before, the more time it sits there, the more moisture is extracted by the salt. I also like to pat the skin dry and add a fresh salt layer halfway through the marinating time.
• Be careful not to knick the pork meat when scoring
• When leaving the pork to marinate, make sure the cider doesn’t touch the fat/rind layers. Pour enough cider into the roasting dish to cover the meat.
• Make sure the rind is as dry as possible before cooking. The salt layer we used before cooking draws out moisture from the pork, make sure to pat it as dry as you can before putting it in the oven. Wet skin won’t result in an amazing, crispy crackling

The rundown

• Slice into pork skin using a sharp knife, leaving deep knicks in the skin that penetrate the fat but not reaching the meat itself
  
• Lay pork into a deep oven dish and cover skin with a thick layer of rock salt
  This will help draw moisture out of the pork, which will aide in creating the perfect crackling. By drawing out the moisture in the skin, it will leave behind a crispy, salty crackling
  
• Pour cider into dish, just enough to cover the meat but not touch the fat of the pork, add spices and thyme to the dish
  
• Place dish in fridge uncovered for 2 hours – overnight
  The more time the better in this case, this gives the salt more time to work it’s magic

• Take pork out of fridge and scrape off salt layer, pat the skin dry
  
• Drain cider from the dish and tuck thyme under pork so they do not burn off during cooking
  
• Lightly sprinkle on an even layer of salt, pepper and the other spices onto pork and place in oven at 250c (480f) for 30 minutes
  The high heat will allow the skin to begin the process of crackling
  
• Reduce heat to 180c (355f) for an additional 50 minutes

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