Name: Roast pork belly sub with crackling, balsamic onions and apple sauce
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 330 min
Total time: 360 min
Yield: 12
Ingredients: 1.3 kg piece pork belly, skin scored; 4 Spanish onions, quartered; 2 tbsp white balsamic vinegar; 2 sourdough baguettes; To serve: mayonnaise; To serve: finely chopped flat-leaf parsley; Spiced onion marinade; ½ onion, coarsely chopped; 1 tbsp butter; 2 tsp white balsamic vinegar; 6 black peppercorns, crushed; 2 cloves, crushed; Apple sauce; 4 Granny Smith apples, peeled and cut into 2cm dice; 200 gm caster sugar; Juice of 1 lemon, or to taste

Roast pork belly sub with crackling, balsamic onions and apple sauce

Lisa Featherby recipe for roast pork belly sub with crackling, balsamic onions and apple sauce.

Serves 12

Prep

30M

Cook

5H 30M

Total

Everyone loves pork and crackling, and a long sub is a great way to feed a crowd. You can cook the pork ahead and chop it so it’s ready to be stuffed into the baguette when you want to serve it. Start this recipe a day and a half ahead to prepare the pork.

Ingredients

1.3 kg piece pork belly, skin scored

4 Spanish onions, quartered

2 tbsp white balsamic vinegar

2 sourdough baguettes

To serve: mayonnaise

To serve: finely chopped flat-leaf parsley

Spiced onion marinade

½ onion, coarsely chopped

1 tbsp butter

2 tsp white balsamic vinegar

6 black peppercorns, crushed

2 cloves, crushed

Apple sauce

4 Granny Smith apples, peeled and cut into 2cm dice

200 gm caster sugar

Juice of 1 lemon, or to taste

Method

Main

1.Rub pork skin with salt and refrigerate uncovered overnight to dry out.

2.Preheat oven to 120C and line a roasting pan with baking paper. For spiced onion marinade, process ingredients and 60ml water in a blender until smooth, transfer to a small saucepan over high heat, bring to the boil, then pour into roasting pan.

3.Place pork in pan on top of marinade and roast until fork-tender (5-5½ hours).

4.Meanwhile, for apple sauce, combine ingredients in a saucepan with a large pinch of salt. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat and stir occasionally until apple is translucent (5-7 minutes). Transfer to a blender and process until smooth, adding extra lemon juice to taste. Set aside at room temperature until required.

5.Combine onion and balsamic vinegar in a bowl. Remove pork from pan (discard baking paper and marinade), increase oven to 250C and clean pan. Return pork to pan, scatter onion mixture in, season to taste and roast until skin has crackled (15-20 minutes). Set pork aside uncovered to rest (15 minutes) and remove crackling. Return pan with onion to oven and roast until tender, but still has some bite (10-15 minutes). If any skin hasn’t crackled, add to pan to finish crackling.

6.Partly split baguettes lengthways and press open. Chop pork and crackling into rough 4cm pieces and stuff pork into baguettes. Top with balsamic onions, apple sauce, crackling and mayonnaise, sprinkle with parsley and serve.