Food with passion: Fennell Roasted Pork Belly & Crushed Baby Roast Potatoes
I grew up with the family tradition of a Sunday roast dinner and to this day I’ve kept that tradition going.
It’s the one day of the week we can relax more, take our time preparing a delicious feast but more importantly for me; it’s an opportunity to gather with my family at least once a week and catch-up over a delicious relaxed home cooked meal.
Like my mum, I adore pork in all forms – she actually used to cook roast pork for herself on Christmas day as she didn’t like turkey – and this roast pork belly dish produces the most meltingly delicious tender meat with crisp crackling, my idea of heaven.
If you don’t manage to get the crackling as crisp as you would like during the cooking time, remove the skin and pop back into the oven until nice and crispy.
This is a great one pan dish, with the meat rested on baby crushed potatoes that crisp up beautifully with all the flavours from the pork, fennel seed and rosemary infused. I’m getting so hungry just thinking about it!
Ingredients: (Serves 3-4)
- 500g /1kg piece of Pork Belly
- 750g of baby new potatoes
- 2 shallots / two red onions cut into wedges
- 2 teaspoons of fennel seeds
- 3 sprigs of fresh rosemary
- Grated zest of one lemon
- Good glug of rapeseed oil
- Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Plus – serve with your favourite vegetable side dishes
Method
- Preheat your oven to 220 degrees/ 425 F/ Gas mark 7. Put the potatoes into a pot of cold water and bring to the boil then allow to simmer for 15 minutes. Drain the potatoes and tip them into your roasting dish and crush them a little with a fork.
- Pop the pork on top of the potatoes and add the onions. Scatter the fennel seeds, rosemary and lemon zest.
- Drizzle over the oil and season well with sea salt and cracked black pepper.
- Roast for 30 minutes then reduce the heat down to 160 degrees /325F / Gas mark 3 and roast for another 1 hour 15 minutes until the cracking is nice and crisp and the meat tender.
- Cover loosely with tinfoil and allow to rest for 15 minutes.
- You can pop the potatoes back into a warm oven while the meat is resting.
- Serve with some of your favourite side dishes such as minty crushed peas, carrot and parsnip smash or whatever takes your fancy.
- Slice the pork and serve with the crispy potatoes, sides and gravy and enjoy!
Pork belly is quite a fatty cut of meat. Cooking it high for the first 30 minutes then low and slow for the remaining cooking time ensures you have the most tender meltingly delicious meat and crispy skin / crackling.
The fennel seeds pack a lovely hint of aniseed, while the rosemary and lemon zest give a nice freshness to this dish.
The crushed baby potatoes crisp up deliciously from the ridges created by forking them and the flavour from the pork infuses into them to give the perfect Sunday lunch dish.
One pan dinners are always a winner in my book too as there’s less washing up! This is no fuss simple cooking at it’s very best that delivers on flavour. Fast becoming one of my favourite Sunday roasts!
