Eighth of an Acre Bounty

Although I tend to pride myself on trying new things and experimenting, I have had a section of pork belly taunting me from the freezer for the past month and a half. With recent life changes (new job, tons more free time, ahh the luxury!) I decided to give it a go the other night. The most predominant recipes I had seen for pork belly seemed to be consistently Chinese in origin, usually a long-cooked red pork belly or some variation. Since I am on a new austerity program (closely related to the new job and abundant free time) I was not enamoured of trundling out to the local asian market to buy the numerous vinegars, sauces and adornments the recipes called for that I inevitably never have on hand – regardless of how I stock up. Instead I decided to do a simple rub based off of the results of an extended google search  of “pork belly”,( I swear I spend more time researching potentials for each meal than I do cooking it).

I crosshatch scored the skin side of the pork belly and massaged a dry rub into the crevices composed of ground fennel and coriander, salt, pepper and a touch of cinnamon. Wrapped the whole thing in plastic wrap and let it sit overnight in the fridge.

A few hours before dinnertime the next day I realized that I had also taken out a bag of whole, frozen squid earlier in the week that had fully defrosted and needed to be cooked before it exiled both the humans and animals from our home. If you have ever let squid sit for more than a day after it has defrosted, you know exactly what I am talking about. It happened to me once – and once is all it takes.

I nudged about in the fridge searching for ideas and found a half cup of cooked beluga lentils leftover from a Delicata, Saffron and Lentil Risotto the night before. Right then – Squid salad with beluga lentils to accompany the pork. I pulled the pork belly out of the fridge and set it skin side up in a roasting pan, turned the oven up to 470 and put it in until the skin crisped. I then turned down the heat to 350, added about a cup of water to the roasting pan and set the timer for two hours, occasionally checking and adding water as necessary.

While the pork belly braised, I cleaned the squid and sliced the tubes into 1/4 inch rings. I cut the eyes from the tentacles and removed the beaks and tossed em all into a steamer for about 3 minutes. Once the squid rings and tentacles had firmed up and turned an opaque white I dumped the contents of the steamer out into a ice water bath to stop the cooking. As the squid cooled I made a quick dressing, pounding a couple of garlic cloves in a mortar along with some cumin. I added salt, olive oil and a bit of lime juice too. I drained the squid and dryed it off – then combined it with the cooked lentils and about 1/8 of a red onion, finely sliced. I poured the dressing on top, gave it a quick stir and put it in the fridge.

I had briefly toyed with the idea of adding some quick sauteed shitake mushrooms to the squid salad but then thought better of it (although I am still not convinced it would have been a bad thing). Instead I sauteed the sliced shitakes alone in a pan with butter and olive oil.

I had expected the pork belly to be outrageously fatty, given that this is the same cut our beloved bacon comes from. But the long braise in the oven had sucessfully rendered the grand majority of the fat from the meat and left it incredibly tender with a crunchy skin crust to rival any expertly roasted chicken. The earthiness of the lentils and cumin in the squid salad married perfectly with the savoury shitakes and pork. The Eater ate every remaining bit of the leftovers and in a very serious tone told me I should write this one down. So – here it is. Unfortunately no pictures were taken in the making of this meal, and the product was consumed so quickly that even an afterthought snapshot was out of the question. So I suppose this entry is less for posterity (and a non-existent readership) than it is for my own reference.