Cider-Roast Pork Belly with Fennel

Don't be fooled - this is a beautiful pork belly with fennel and not a strange
looking roast chicken!!!

A pure Donna Hay recipe as simple as easy as she promises.

5 Ingredients - BAM!

And this recipe is absolutely delicious.  I had to admit I wasn't sure about the fennel because I am not a fan of liquorice, HOWEVER, it's never a bad thing to try something new.  And boy did this fennel really make a difference to the pork.  A-mazing :)

Karen and I had our first chill weekend together in ages, so we filled our Saturday with morning shopping (Zara!!), grand cooking in the afternoon, some SA vs NZ rugby for me, and a movie for the evening (Prisoners, with Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhall).  Now as I write to you on Sunday we watch a spot of Harry Potter before settling into X Factor this evening with amazing left over dinner from last night! Brilliant..

So... to the cooking.
After fighting with all the blunt knives in our kitchen, Karen and I finally managed to scour the pork fat using a combined effort of a bread knife and tiny vegetable knife (If someone is reading this post and is around me for x-mas, birthday, etc, a proper Master Chef knife would be an awesome gift ;) hehe).

We managed in the end and after 45 mins in a high oven, plenty of salt and some lemon thyme sprigs under the pork belly, we had ourselves some crackling :) Oh yes.

We added in some cider and the huge fennel's and popped the pork back into the oven for 1 hour, along with some roast veggies and potatoes.

The end result was the most divine, succulent pork with subtle hints of fennel and thyme.  The fennel, even after being cooked, I didn't enjoy on its own.  I would only cook with fennel again as a flavour additive rather than a veggie itself.  But that's just me ;)

If you keen on making this recipe (and you should), here you go:

Recipe (serves 4):

• 1 kg Pork Belly
• Sea salt
• 8 Sprigs Lemon Thyme
• 4 Bulbs fennel, halved (I would only use 2)
• 375ml Cider

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 220 degrees.
• Dry the pork using a paper towel.  Score the skin at even intervals.  Place in a baking dish and genorously run with sea salt. 
• Tuck the Lemon Thyme under the pork and roast for 45 minutes or until you get a good crackling on top.
• Reduce heat to 120 degrees.
• Add the fennel to the baking dish and add the cider to just cover the meat but not touch the skin.
• Bake for 1 hour.