Southern BBQ pork belly with a sweetcorn salsa

Recipe

“A recipe that we’re loving lately is a great one from Jamie Oliver and it involves the Barbie - really yummy & tasty and it’s great with couscous, it’s easy & very delicious! Bon Appétit!”– Nicola Hawdon.

An American-style, smoky BBQ pork – Jamie has a way of writing accessible home cooked recipes of dishes they may have seemed out of reach beforehand. The pork remains succulent due to the slow oven cooking, then the barbecuing adds great crunchy texture at the final stage and adds another dimension of smoky flavour.

Let it rest well so the meat stays juicy, and serve with some great salads, salsas and breads.

Serves 6 – 8. GF. DF.

Pictured: Southern BBQ pork belly

Handful of fresh bay leaves

2 tsp rock salt

1 tbsp smoked paprika

3 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

2kg pork belly in one piece, skin removed*

To serve –

Chilli sauce salsa-

2 Seeded and chopped red chillies

½ cup Fresh chopped coriander

Olive oil, a few glugs

Sweetcorn Salsa

2 corn cobs

1 tomato, diced

½ - 1 avocado, diced

½ Spanish onion, finely diced

½ red or green capsicum, finely diced

½ - 1 cucumber, diced

Tabasco to taste

½ - 1 lime, juice

Salt and pepper

*get your butcher to do this - you can cook separately & make crackling if you like. Get a smaller piece if not serving so many.

Pre-heat oven to 180°C.

Bash leaves and salt in a pestle and mortar until the leaves disintegrate and the salt turns green. Pick out any strands, then add the rest of the spices and pepper.

Rub the pork with the spice mix & a little oil. Put into a snug-fitting tray.

Cover the tray tightly with foil and put in the oven for 2 hours depending on the size of the meat.

Make the salsas-

Chilli - Mix the chilli salsa ingredients together in one bowl.

Pictured: Fresh chilli, coriander and olive oil - accompaniment to Southern BBQ Pork Belly

Sweetcorn - Grill at least 2 whole corn cobs under high heat (wait for the BBQ to be ready if possible), turning as it blackens slightly, strip kernels off. Toss with any combination of diced tomato, avocado, cucumber, Spanish onion, capsicum, tossed with a few splashes of Tabasco, chopped coriander, lime juice and salt and pepper.

Pictured: Sweetcorn Salsa, accompaniment to Southern BBQ Pork Belly

Light the BBQ after the pork has had an hour in the oven.

After 2 hrs. cooking in the oven your pork should be tender and flavoured with all the wonderful spices. Lift out of roasting tray and drop straight onto the BBQ. It will crackle as the fat drips onto the coals, so don’t worry if you see a few flames. Turn the pork over and move it around the grill now and then for 10-15 minutes to crisp up the surface.

Serve in thick slices with the two salsas, fresh breads or rice.

TasteTip - There’s an official heat scale for chillies known as the Scoville scale, developed by Wilbur Scoville in 1912. To give you an idea of the range of heat in various chillies, a sweet pepper scores 0 on the scale, Jalapeño and chipotle chillies score anything between 2,500 to 10,000 and habanero and Scotch Bonnet score 80,000 to 300,000 plus!