Chef's Recipes

Monty Koludrovic's charcoal glazed pork neck, fragrant baked vegetables and laver sauce

Monty Koludrovic, executive chef of Icebergs Dining Room and Bar and The Dolphin Hotel, shares his charcoal glazed pork neck, fragrant baked vegetables and laver sauce recipe.

By Monty Koludrovic
  • 12 hrs preparation
  • 8 hrs 30 mins cooking
  • Serves 4
  • Print
    Print
Monty Koludrovic, executive chef of Icebergs Dining Room and Bar and The Dolphin Hotel, shares his charcoal glazed pork neck, fragrant baked vegetables and laver sauce recipe.

Ingredients

Pork brine
  • 1kg hot water
  • 70g brown sugar
  • 50g salt
  • 40g peppercorns
  • 6g coriander seeds
  • 2g mustard seeds
  • 4g fennel seeds
Pork neck and glaze
  • 1.2kg pork neck
  • 200ml apple juice
  • 65ml vincotto
  • 20ml aged balsamic vinegar
  • 1 fresh bay leaf
  • 20g sugar
  • 10g salt
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • charcoal for grilling
Herb and nasturtium puree
  • 2 cups nasturtium and herb trims (no stem), blanched
  • 200ml olive oil
  • ice cubes
  • salt and white pepper, to taste
Laver sauce
  • 100g dried laver seaweed
  • 3 eschallots, finely sliced
  • 3 garlic cloves, finely sliced
  • 150ml unscented oil (grapeseed or similar)
  • white wine vinegar
  • 200ml reduced veal or lamb stock
Garnish
  • 25 stems samphire
  • 8 small Baby Golden beetroots
  • 8 small pickling onions
  • 2 royal blue or Dutch cream potatoes
  • 12 garnishing nasturtium leaves
  • pork crackling, chopped

Method

Main
  • 1
    Combine all brine ingredients and mix well to ensure everything is dissolved. Once cool, add the pork neck to the brine and sit for 6 hours.
  • 2
    Combine all glaze ingredients and bring to the boil. Simmer for 5 minutes, then remove from the heat and set to one side. Pour half of the brine over the pork neck and place in an oven bag or vacuum sealed bag. Cook at 58C for 8 hours. Chill and store in the fridge until needed.
  • 3
    For service, remove from the bag, drain and allow to sit at room temperature for 1 hour while your coals heat up. Place over hot coals and brush with the glaze, turning as required for even, sticky, blackened crust around the meat.
  • 4
    Chill oil in the freezer for half an hour before making the herb and nasturtium puree. Make sure the nasturtium leaves and herb trims are blanched for 2-3 minutes so they are silky and soft. Dry them well and chop them in a high-speed blender. Add some oil gradually to allow the blades to spin and capture the herbs; as the puree starts to form, add enough oil to incorporate all herbs. Up the blender speed to maximum to get the puree as smooth as possible. The mix will start to heat up because of the intense friction from the blades. Add ice cubes one by one to achieve emulsion and prevent the mix from going brown. Once smooth and thick, pass through a chinois into a bowl over ice. Transfer to a squeezy bottle.
  • 5
    For laver sauce, sweat the shallots and garlic in the oil until fully soft and not coloured. Pour all the oil, shallots and garlic over the laver and wrap with cling film and allow the seaweed to hydrate and cool.
  • 6
    Blitz the seaweed until smooth and season with vinegar. This blitz might take a while. Add an ice cube if need be to help stimulate the blitz. Add a heaped tablespoon of laver puree to your reduced stock sauce and taste for seasoning. You can mix the laver puree in using a handheld blender to evenly mix.
  • 7
    For the garnish, using a Solferino scoop (similar to Parisienne scoop, but smaller), scoop out the potato balls into cold water. Approx 6-8 per portion. Remove the skin of the onions and cut in half. Try and keep the core and tip on for presentation. Combine the onions on a wax paper square with the drained potato balls and dress with olive oil, salt and pepper. Wrap up and secure in foil. Scrub the beetroots and cut in half, dress with white wine vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper. Add to a wax paper square and wrap up, secure with foil. Bake vegetables at 150C until tender, 15-20 minutes for onions and potatoes; 30-40 minutes for beetroots, depending on size. Once finished, separate the onion into "leaves" and store with the potato. Peel the beets and strain the cooking juices back for storage. Blanch the samphire in boiling salted water and chill over ice.
  • 8
    To serve, warm the vegetables in a medium-heat oven, season and serve with the charcoal roasted pork. I like to put little dollops of the herb puree in the onion leaves. Drizzle with laver sauce, finish with crackling and serve.

Notes

The herb and nasturtium puree ingredients will make a little extra than is needed.This recipe is presented by Australian Pork