Roast belly of pork with baked apples and chestnut purée

This roast belly pork dish comes from Asturias in north-west Spain.  It has beautiful crackling and looks and tastes irresistible.  It can be served with apple purée and mashed potatoes but here baked apples and chestnut purée are suggested.

Preparation Time: 20 Mins

Cooking Time: 2½ Hrs

Total Time: 3¼ Hrs

Ingredients

For 6 servings…

25 cl               Cider  - dry

8                    Apples  - eating       

½                   Belly pork  - with skin on and scored      

  Salt              

2 tbs               Olive oil    

For the chestnut puée

500 gms          Chestnuts  - peeled   

  Salt              

30 gms            Butter       

300 ml             Milk         

Method

To cook the pork…

Put the pork on a rack in a roasting dish.  Sprinkle generously with salt and rub it in.  Then wipe the excess salt off the skin and rub whole joint with the oil.  Turn the it skin side up.

Put the roasting dish in an oven preheated to 220°C for 30 minutes until the pork skin has started to puff up, then reduce the heat to 190°C and cook for about 2 hours, until the crackling is crisp and brown.  Cover with foil and let the meat rest for 15 minutes before cutting it into thick slices.

Meanwhile prepare the apples…

Put the apples in a baking dish or pan that holds them snugly.  Pour in the cider and place the dish in the oven below the roast when the heat is lowered.  Take the apples out when they are tender when pierced with a knife.  Watch them after about 40 minutes of cooking so that they do not fall apart.  Put them back in the oven 10 minutes before the pork is cooked to heat through.

For the chestnut purée…

Boil the chestnuts over a low heat in enough milk to cover them, in a pan with the lid on, until they are soft.  Drain them, reserving the milk, and add salt and butter.  Mash the chestnuts or blend them in the food processor, adding as much of the reserved milk as is needed to have a soft consistency.

Variations

For a spicier variation rub cumin seeds into the skin with the salt.

Wine recommendations

A robust red wine.

Conventional

     Côtes du Rhône

Interesting

     Cornas

     Côtes du Luberon

     Côtes du Rhône Villages, Plan de Dieu

     Saint Joseph