pork belly

How to make pancetta

November 17, 2010 Food & drink

I’ve skirted around the edges of this recipe for a while now. It’s not really a recipe, as such…it’s more of a chemistry experiment that involves taking something a bit bland and mediocre, adding some other stuff to it and miraculously transforming it into something that’s way better than the sum of its parts. It’s [...]

21 comments Read the full article →

Slow roasted pork belly with fennel and coriander crackling

October 12, 2009 Food & drink

A pork belly gives a lot of bang for buck. It’s a cheap cut that benefits from simple, hands-off cooking. A few herbs, some salt and pepper and a few hours in a low oven are all you need. First, the joint. A cut from the thick end of the belly weighing between 1 and [...]

13 comments Read the full article →

Leeds Loves Food at The Living Room

July 6, 2009 Eating out

The Leeds Loves Food festival happened this weekend, and we ate at The Living Room on Saturday as part of it. The Living Room is one of those self consciously fashionable places. You know the sort. It has the feel and look of an upmarket bar bordering on a private member’s club. It’s a fashionable [...]

0 comments Read the full article →

Slow roasted pork belly

March 29, 2009 Food & drink

These are challenging times. The talk at work is of mergers and takeovers, arrears and repossession, cost reduction and redundancy. People are feeling the pinch. A slowly roasted pork belly can’t fail to lift the mood. A cheap, easy and forgiving cut, pork belly is at it’s best when cooked lazily in a low oven, [...]

21 comments Read the full article →

Chinese five spice pork belly with noodles

February 15, 2009 Food & drink

Pork belly is cheap, robust, easy to cook and very tasty, especially when roasted. The thing to realise about this cut is that the point of cooking it has little to do with the meat and everything to do with the skin. Crackling is the real draw here. To give a roast pork belly an [...]