24 hour pork belly with fermented apple, seeds and nuts and a beer sauce

Jason Atherton

Cook Time 24 hours

Servings 4

Difficulty Hard

Ingredients

For the pork belly:

500g pork belly

4L duck fat

20g miso paste

For the salt cure and pork floss:

30g sel rose

70g sea salt, plus a little for the pork floss

5 star anise, crushed

3 cinnamon sticks, crushed

1 tsp peppercorns

15 cloves, crushed

a handful of thyme

2 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed

For the pork beer sauce:

500g pork trimmings

4 banana shallots, chopped

2 tbsp olive oil

half a head of garlic

a handful of thyme

a small bay leaf

10 white peppercorns

25ml sherry vinegar

half a bottle of white wine

1 x 330ml can English ale

50ml malt barley syrup

1 litre brown chicken stock

To serve:

extra virgin olive oil

For the fermented apple purée:

500g Granny Smith apples

10g fresh yeast

1 tbsp lemon juice

2 tsp sugar

250g butter

For the seed and nut mix:

100g Puy lentils

100g pearled spelt grains

1 small carrot, chopped

1 stick of celery, chopped

1 small white onion, chopped

50g pumpkin seeds

30g sesame seeds

30g hazelnuts

30g sunflower seeds

1 tsp coriander seeds, toasted and ground a splash of soy sauce

Sea salt to taste

1 tsp sugar

a little extra virgin olive oil

To serve:

buttered spring cabbage

Method

Remove the skin from the pork belly and set it to one side. Mix the sel rose, salt, star anise, cinnamon, peppercorns and cloves together well and rub them all over the belly, then put the belly in a dish, cover and put it in the fridge overnight, along with the skin. Preheat the oven to 85°C/185°F. Put 3 litres of the duck fat in a large casserole, add the belly and confit it for 18 hours. Then remove it from the confit, press it gently and chill it for a further 8 hours.

Prepare the pork floss. At the same time as you are confiting the belly, confit the skin separately in a litre of the duck fat infused with the thyme, garlic and some more Maldon salt until it is well over-cooked. Remove the skin from the confit and allow it to cool down on a rack so excess fat drains away. Once the skin is cool, put it onto a baking tray and dehydrate it in the oven at a low temperature until it is very dry; this will take several hours. Dry the skin further on paper, and keep changing it; this will help the process and dry the skin as much as possible. Once it is dry, increase the oven temperature to the maximum possible, season the skin well and put it into the oven on a tray until very well puffed up. Then dry it out again, once more as much as possible, and blend it in a Thermomix (or pulse it, in stages, in a heavy-duty spice grinder) until you have a fine powder.

Make the sauce. Using a very large pan over a medium heat, colour the pork trimmings and chopped shallots in the olive oil. Then deglaze the pan with the sherry vinegar. Add the white wine, thyme, peppercorns and bay leaf, and reduce the liquid to a syrupy consistency. Add the beer and reduce it down again – skim the surface well. Then add the malt barley syrup and reduce again. Finally, add the stock and bring to the boil. Then reduce the heat to a simmer, skimming as before, and cook the sauce out for 30 minutes. Pass it through a fine sieve and chill.

Peel the apples and slice them thinly; put them in a large sealable bag. Blitz the yeast, lemon juice and sugar and add them to the apple. Then seal the bag and leave it in a warm place for 30 minutes. Remove the apple mixture and sweat it rapidly in the butter until tender, then blend the mixture until smooth – a hand blender is ideal. Pass it through a sieve into a bowl, check the seasoning and keep it warm. Discard the apple which remains in the sieve.