SLOW ROASTED BELLY PORK

Serves: 4-6
Preparation time: Overnight
Cooking time: 6 hours

METHOD

1. Salt the belly over night. Cover the meat in salt and leave it.
2. Next morning, brush off the salt, and stick the garlic all over the joint in little pockets made with the point of a knife.
3. Now, the crackling. Score the skin all over in a diamond pattern, with a very sharp knife. Don't cut down to the meat. Then pour boiling water all over it. Or if you have a pan deep enough, immerse it in boiling water for a few seconds. Repeat twice. Then dry thoroughly. Best to leave in a warm place for a couple of hours or even use a hairdryer.
4. Place joint skin side up on a trivet of woody herbs. Stick some through the joint if you haven't already done so with the point of a sharp knife. Season with pepper
5. Cook on a very low heat (110°C)for about 6 hours. Remove from oven. Turn oven heat to 240°C.
6. Remove the skin from the joint. Leave the joint to rest covered in foil.
7. Put the joint back in the oven and watch carefully. At 240°C it should crisp up and blister quite quickly, check it after 15 minutes and then every 5. It should be done perfectly in 20 - 25 minutes. I have seen crackling crisped in restaurants by deep frying it. Only trouble here is some cowboy doing it in dirty oil - which happens more often than not, and that at any rate it will taste of the oil it was fried in, and not lovely salty porkness.
8. Eat - I particularly like the layer of fat just under the skin. Oh God - I'd kill for that done properly, from a properly tasty free range rare breed animal, preferably killed at over 8 months so it's had a chance to get some fat on it and some flavour in it. Christ I can taste it now. In fact I'm going to go home right now and do it. See ya

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