Roast Pork Belly

Pork Belly is one of the fattier joints of pork, but the fats run into through the meat as it cooks, protecting it from drying out and keeping it moist. You don't need to eat all, or any of the fat, if you don't want to, but with the skin on, it makes a delicious crackling!

We've adapted this recipe from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage Meat. It's a great recipe, we've just played with the temperatures and timings a little.

Roast pork belly with crackling and apple sauce, served with roast potatoes, broccoli and white cabbage

Serves 3-4

For the pork:

• ~1kg Pork Belly
• A handful of fresh thyme leaves, chopped, or 1tsp dried thyme
• Salt and pepper
• A splash of olive oil

For the apple sauce:

• 2 Bramley apples, peeled and cut into small chunks (1-2cm)
• 1tsp lemon juice
• 1tsp sugar

Preheat the oven to 230°C

Place the pork into a roasting dish. With a sharp knife, score the skin, but being careful not to go all the way through the layer of fat. Sprinkle the thyme, salt and pepper over the skin with just a splash of olive oil and massage it into the skin, making sure to get it in the cracks. Don't over do the olive oil - it's just there to help you massage everything into the skin.

Place the pork in the oven. After 30minutes, turn the heat down to 160°C, and cook for another 1hr 20minutes. Roast potatoes will take about 1hr 20minutes at this temperature, so they can go in as soon as you turn the heat down (they're especially good if you've preheated the oil/fat in the oven at 230°C).

About 10 minutes before the end of the roasting time is a good time to start peeling apples, and cutting them into chunks. Put them in a saucepan and toss with lemon juice as you chop them, to ensure they don't go brown. Add the sugar, and a splash of water, and place over a low heat, stirring regularly, until it has turned to mush. Taste, and add more sugar if necessary.

Mean while, once the pork is finished roasting, turn off the oven, open and leave for about 20minutes. If you're doing roast potatoes, you should take the roast potatoes out of the oven, place them on a plate so that they're not sitting in the oil, and then put them back in the oven to keep them warm.

Carve the pork by taking off the crackling, and cutting a thick slice from the meat for each of your diners. Serve the crackling resting across the meat, with roast potatoes and some greens such as cabbage, broccoli or peas. Let your guests serve the apple sauce themselves.

Pot Roast Brisket

Brisket is one of the cheaper cuts of beef. It's quite tough, so shouldn't be done rare at all, but should be cooked very slowly with a lot of liquid. I took inspiration from a lot of places for this recipe, which worked out nicely.

A slice of roast brisket, served with the gravy and some roast potatoes, parsnips, carrots and squash

Serves 3-4

• 600g brisket, rolled
• 2 onions, roughly chopped
• 2-3 carrots, roughly chopped
• 2 bay leaves
• Leaves of a few sprigs of thyme
• 800ml beef stock
• Salt and pepper
• 2 tsp Dijon mustard

Preheat the oven to 160°C.

Brown the brisket in a frying pan, then remove and place into a casserole dish. Fry the onion and carrots in the same pan until softened, and then add to the casserole dish. Add the bay leaves, thyme, a dash of salt and pepper, and stock to the casserole dish, put the lid on, and then place in the oven for 3 hours.

After the brisket is done, take it out of the casserole dish, wrap in foil, and rest for 15 minutes. Put the gravy back into the oven to keep it warm. After the 15 minutes, take the gravy out and mix in the Dijon mustard., adding more salt and pepper to taste. Calve the brisket into thick slices, and serve with the gravy spooned on top.

Note: If you're wanting to do roast potatoes and parsnips (like we did), these will take about 1 hour 30 min at this temperature.

Crab Cakes

What to do when you have a random whole crab? Why, make crab cakes from scratch, of course! And so that is what I did one sleepy weekend.
The crab was boiled in salted water and allowed to cool completely. All the brown meat and white meat was then meticulously removed. I am very inexperienced in this matter so it took me around 45 minutes. I'd like to say it was worth it in terms of flavour but in hindsight I would probably buy fresh crabmeat from the fishmongers instead.

Cooking time: 10-15 minutes
Prep time: 20 minutes ( + 45 minutes for the crabmeat)

Serves 4

• 500g waxy potatoes
• 500g crabment (2 : 1 ratio of brown to white meat)
• 1 red chilli
• 1 spring onion
• 1 lemon
• olive oil
• salt and pepper
• 1 tsp paprika
• plain flour

Peel and dice the potatoes roughly. As they boil in some lightly salted water, mix the crabmeat with finely chopped chilli, spring onion and lemon zest. Drain the potatoes and allow the steam to evaporate and the potatoes to dry out a little. Incorporate with the rest of the mixture and season to taste with salt and pepper. Add 2 tbsp of olive oil to loosen and then mix together thoroughly with a masher.

Shape into a dozen patties. Set aside in the fridge to chill for a few hours or overnight to firm up. 

Heat 2 tsbp of olive oil in a frying pan. Scatter some plain flour onto the work surface and pat the crab cakes in a layer of flour before placing carefully into the pan. Take care not to overcrowd the pan though otherwise a crisp bottom will not form. Also, resist the temptation to continuously handle the cakes. The best results occur if there is no interaction until they are ready to be turned - around 5 minutes. Repeat on the other side; they may require another dash of olive oil into the pan at this stage. 

Serve piping hot.