Recipes: Slow-cooked belly of Middle White pork with Puy lentils

A regular on the menu at chef Tom Kerridge’s gastropub, The Hand and Flowers in Buckinghamshire.

• 1½ kg belly of Middle White pork (boneless, but in one piece) , skin scored
• 100ml white wine vinegar
• table salt
• Maldon sea salt

BRAISED LENTILS

• 40g duck fat
• 3 shallots , finely chopped
• 1 garlic clove , crushed
• 300g Puy lentils
• 250ml white wine
• 1 tbsp herbes de Provence
• 100l hot chicken stock
• 50g butter , diced
• bunch chive , chopped

  

  1. Heat the oven to 190C/fan 170C/gas 5. Put the pork belly on a metal rack in a roasting tray. Pour the white wine vinegar over and rub it into the skin. Then rub in a handful of table salt. Sprinkle with Maldon salt and pat into the skin. Roast the pork for 2 hours. Rest for at least 20 minutes then brush off the salt crust.
  2. Melt the duck fat in a heavy pan. Add the shallots and garlic and cook until softened. Then add the lentils and stir well. Add the white wine and stir until it has almost been absorbed. Add the herbs and around 250ml chicken stock. Add the remainder of the chicken stock little by little until the lentils are cooked (this should take about 40 minutes). Take off the heat and stir in the butter and chives.
  3. Slice the pork and serve with the lentils. If you fancy some greenery, Savoy cabbage works with this.

  Per serving

  826 kcalories, protein 17,9g, carbohydrate 16,4g, fat 53,3 g, saturated fat 21,6g, fibre 4,6g, salt 0,95 g