Honey and mustard pork with winter veg salad
Post Christmas blues and long dark days can leave us all longing for a treat. Jimmy Garcia has the ultimate meal - he's showing us how to feed four for under a tenner and he'll even give you change! Start off with this gorgeous pork dish.
(Serves 4)
Ingredients
For the Pork Belly
2 tbsp honey1 tbsp Dijon mustard1 tbsp apricot jam800g pork belly 3 onions, cut in half 1 whole carrot, roughly chopped into large chunks1 celery stick, roughly chopped into large chunks3 dried apricots 1 cup waterSalt and black pepper Juice and zest of 1 orange, (reserve the zest for the chocolate mousse) 2 Pears, peeled and sliced Splash of vinegar1 tsp cornflour (optional)
For the winter vegetable salad
2 pears1 bag of salad, whichever variety you prefer 1 carrot, cut in to ribbons with a vegetable peeler 1 cooked beetroot, cut into chunky cubes 1 sweet potato peeled and cut into chunks½ bag radishes – approximately 7 cut in half
Method
Preheat the oven to 180C for 2 ½ hours
For the Pork belly, take a bowl and mix the honey, mustard and apricot jam together. Take a pastry brush or lightly spoon the marinade over the meat. Be really careful to avoid the rind of the belly - the sugar content inside the marinade might cause the rind to burn in the oven, which you don’t want, you want to ensure you get nice crisp crackling.
Put all the vegetables in the bottom of the roasting tray, place the pork belly on top of the vegetables and add water until it almost touches the bottom of the meat. Place in the oven at 180C for about 2 ½ hours.
Place the sweet potato onto a tray and drizzle with a little olive oil and season with salt and pepper and bake for about 20 minutes at 180C. Put to one side for the salad.
After 2 ½ hours, remove the lid and place the pork onto a tray and back into the oven. Turn up the heat to 230C and cook for a further 30 minutes to get a lovely crispy crackling.
Meanwhile make the sauce vinaigrette by removing all the juices from the roasting tray and skimming off the fat. A good way of doing this is by placing the liquid into a tupperware and then into the freezer for about 15-20 minutes – this will allow the fat to freeze and it will mean that you can scrape the fat easily from the top leaving you with the base for your sauce.
Place the liquid into a saucepan and add the juice of the orange and a splash of vinegar if you have some. Add the sliced pears to the liquor and allow it to reduce over a medium heat for about 20 minutes.
Once the pears are soft remove from the sauce and add a little corn flour to thicken if necessary.For the salad, place the leaves onto a serving plate and scatter over the carrot, beetroot, sweet potato, sliced pears and radish before drizzling over a little of the sauce.