Go on, pig out

A fellow chef complained to me that there were no cheap cuts any more. It’s not quite true – pig’s tails, ox liver and even silverside are pretty inexpensive – but I know what he means. Even pig’s trotters, thanks to Pierre Koffmann and Marco Pierre White, are not the bargains they used to be; beef cheeks, oxtails and feather blades have become gourmet cuts with prices to match. Even pork belly, once the standby of the indigent gourmet, is no longer cheap.

To many of us, the pig’s side has always been its most desirable part. Legs are only interesting when they become hams, while the shoulder must be really bursting with white fat before it becomes a good roast. Ears, heads, trotters and tails are all very well if you have a taste for that sort of thing and the loin, despite having that big eye of muscle running through it, is only a belly with insufficient marbling.

When I speak to my excellent butcher, I have to remind him that I need the belly to have plenty of fat. The trouble is a lot of belly pork or streaky bacon has become rather lean. Many of you will be pleased at this development, and if I ate bacon every day, or a great deal of pork, I would sympathise. However, I eat these things only on occasion and when I do, I want them to taste as they should and not be lean and flavourless.

Besides, it is worth remembering much of the fat is rendered out in the cooking process. In order to maximise the tenderness of the meat and, paradoxically, the crispness of the crackling, I steam the meat before I roast it. Part of the effect of the steaming is to open the slits made by scoring the meat and to release much of the fat beneath. But buying good-quality meat and then steaming a third of it away means belly pork is definitely not a cheap cut any more.

Rowley Leigh is the chef at Le Café Anglais

rowley.leigh@ft.com

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Rowley’s drinking choice

Oaked Chardonnays, reviled so often, really excel with pork, just as long as they have enough balancing acidity: this is not really the time for mature great white burgundy, but for something a little more bumptious.

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Steamed and roast belly of pork with fennel

Ingredients

It is not difficult to rig up a steamer big enough to hold half a pork belly. I either use a wok and invert a large bowl over the top or a deep oven tray, each with a wire rack laid inside.

½ a belly of pork, weighing approximately 2kg-2.5kg

4 large heads of Florentine fennel

5 star anis

1 onion

3 cloves of garlic

A few sprigs of thyme

1 lemon

250ml white wine

Remove the covering of fine white fat on the underbelly (ie not on the skin or rind side) and then score the skin quite deeply (3mm-4mm) with a sharp knife in parallel cuts just 5mm apart. Trim the bases of the fennel and cut off the shoots at the top, leaving an almost round bulb. Split these in half through the longer section of the root and then cut the two halves into three segments each, ensuring each piece is held together by a part of the central stalk. Reserve these segments for later.

Remove the wispy green fronds from the shoots and reserve these too for later use. Slice the shoots finely. Peel and slice the onion and the cloves of garlic. Place these vegetables in the steamer together with the star anis, the thyme, a handful of peppercorns and a teaspoon of salt. Pour in enough water to come halfway up the sides of the pan, or to a point just below the position of the rack that will be placed on top. Bring the water to a gentle simmer on the top of the stove and then place the rack on top and then the belly, with the scored skin side uppermost, on top. Cover and leave to steam for an hour and 20 minutes, checking occasionally that the liquid level remains constant.

Distribute the fennel segments in a deepish oven tray and sprinkle with a little olive oil and some sea salt. Lift the belly and its rack off the steamer tray and place over the fennel. Rub the skin with lemon and sprinkle it with sea salt and then place the tray in a preheated oven set at 180°C. Strain the liquid from the steamer into a bowl or jug. Leave the meat to cook in the oven for 30 minutes.

After this time, the crackling should be beginning to crisp and harden, and the fennel colouring nicely. Pour the wine over the fennel and leave to cook for a further 20 minutes before reducing the heat to 150°C. Skim the fat off the steaming liquor and add the remainder to the tray, together with some grated lemon zest and the lightly chopped fronds of fennel reserved earlier. Let these simmer in the oven again and then prepare to serve. Carve thin slices of the pork and its crackling, alongside a couple of segments of fennel and the juice produced in the bottom of the tray.

This dish needs little other garnish.