Pork belly roast in apple cider

This pork belly roast in apple cider is almost a whole dish in one go.  As any god pork roast, it cooks slowly for quite some time.  My trick, is that I cook it slowly for 2-3 hours covered, switch off the oven if dinner is still a while away and put it back for 1/h to an hour uncovered to finish it off and get the cracking! It works! (on my photo it appear a little dark, I went to pick the children up from school while in the oven which took longer than expected).

You can do the other way around (first the cracking uncovered, then cover up and cook slowly).

Ingredient

• pork belly
• apple cider
• Garlic heads one or two depending on the size of your roast
• 1 or two apples, cored, cut in thick slices horizontally
• salt, pepper
• herbs

Method

• Score the top part of the pork belly, rub with salt
• Cut the garlic heads halfway and place in roasting plan along with the apple slices. Put the pork belly on top. Add herbs, a dash of olive oil.
• Poor the cider around the roast until it touches the meat (it’s of to have a bit of the meat “wet”).
• Cover with foil.
• Place in oven at 150°C for three hours or until very soft (the top will not look very appetizing at this stage).
• If you are close to dinner time, uncover, increase the oven temperature to 180-200 and cook further until the tops blisters and crackles.
• If you are not so close to dinner, switch off the over (leave the roast in there), and put back on up to an hour before dinner as instructed above.
• Remove from the oven and rest before cutting and serving.
• Serve with seized greens and roasted potatoes. See examples below for grilled potatoes and greens.