Slow Roasted Belly of Pork with Preserved Lemon, Fennel, Sumac & Garlic

Ingredients

Large Piece of Pork Belly ribs removed, Crackling scored (Edis of Ely in Bury for your Pork!)

1 large preserved lemon

2/3 cloves of Garlic

1-2 tablespoons of Ground fennel (depends how aniseed you like!)

1 level teaspoon ground Sumac

2 table spoons of Pedro Ximenez Vinegar/or large glug of sherry

Sea salt

1/4 to 1/2 pint of water

Method

1. Preheat an oven to 200°C 400°F Gas 6; line a roasting tray with foil.

2. Heat a small frying pan, add the ground fennel, roast the spices briefly, reserve in a bowl

3. Remove seeds from the lemon, blitz in a food processor till course but pureed. Add to fennel.

4. Crush the Garlic, add to the fennel mix, add the sumac and mix all together.

5. With the belly rind side up, rub liberally with sea salt, working into the crackling.

6. Turn over and with a small knife; make small incisions into the pork flesh all over.

7. Rub the fennel, lemon, garlic & sumac mixture into the flesh of the belly.

8. Turn the meat over and place crackling side up in the roasting tray.

9. Place into the pre heated oven on high for 30 minutes to blister the rind for crackling.

10. After 30 mins, reduce to 150°C 300°F Gas 2 and cook for 3-4 hours until the meat is soft.

11. The pork should be crispy, and the meat crusted dark and able to break away into fibers, there should also be lots of fat & residual meat juices that have caramelized.

12. Remove the belly and keep warm, drain the fat but keep the juices and caramelized pieces.

13.  Transfer to a low heat, add the vinegar, then add ¼ to ½ pint of water to make a gravy scraping all the caramelised pieces to darken and flavour the gravy.

14. Remove the crackling and break up or serve whole with the gravy poured over.