Pork pleasure
Pork belly has become fashionable over recent years. It can be found on the menus at many smart restaurants.
Quite right, too. It's fabulous stuff - flavoursome, beautifully tender when cooked properly and (important in these credit crunched times) great value.
Usually, it's a cut of meat I buy in a joint and slow roast.
But yesterday I adapted a Spanish recipe that uses pork cheeks and combines the meat with white wine, chicken stock, garlic, thyme, star anise, honey, broad beans, apples and black pudding in a sort of stew.
It was absolutely wonderful and it's a dish I fully intend to cook again.
Yet more proof that the cheaper cuts of meat can be turned into great meals if they are treated with care and skill.
What a shame we've been conned into thinking that such things as pork belly no longer have a place on our dining tables.
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Paul Fulford - Features Editor Paul Fulford gives his verdict on the region’s restaurants.
If I choose pork it's normally shoulder or belly - cheaper cuts, but beautiful when done well. The last time was slow-braised pork shoulder with star anise and ginger.
This weekend i'm planning to try out Hugh's recipe for homemade Chorizo that appeared in the guardian a month or two back. This calls for finely minced pork belly. I have never cooked with cheeks though - will have to enquire at my butchers to see if they do them!
Let me know how the chorizo go, Tom. I've long planned to make my own sausages, but never quite got round to it.
Chorizo went well - though not chorizo sausages. It's Hugh's recipe for 'tupperware chorizo' which is not cured or smoked or anything complicated, but used in cooking for stews or with clams like in this article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/feb/07/shellfish-pork-recipes-hugh-fearnley
I've got a lot of time for Hugh FW's approach to ingredients and cooking.