Roast Pork Belly with Fennel and Apple Sauce

Valentines Day is rampant with commercialism , watching the panicked faces of men buying flowers at St Pancras Station only pushed the point home but this year am tying up our celebration in two great initatives

Firstly Purple Love Week running from Valentines Day for a week it encourages people to spend money in their local shops . It shown that any money spent in the local economy is worth five times as much to the overall community so just a fiver works out at being worth at least £25.00 because the money goes from business to business meaning the whole community benefits.

This week also got an email about a Valentines initiative from The Energy Saving Trust ,   Turn me on, turn it off aims to find environmentally freindly way to celebrate Valentines Day , they have plenty of suggestions online Funnily enough Nick and I owe our relationship to a little enforced turning off of heating , staying at cottage in rural Wales   the heating had broken down, forced to  huddle together for warmth  thankfully the electric  oven was working and Nick cooked me  pork belly . Lack of heating and perfectly cooked meal the rest is history .

So to show our Purple Love I  despatched the lovey boyfreind to our local butchers Dundas  for some pork belly this time I am afraid we didn’t turn the heating off, this time but our new cohabitation has saved  a weekly 150 mile commute doing our bit for the environment.

The pork belly happily roasted with minimal input &  I made a fennel and apple sauce which cut through the richness of the pork belly also some delicous roast beetroot ,plenty of leftovers for the week, just perfect

Roast Pork Belly

1kg of pork belly

Score the top of the pork belly
Rub with sea salt and pepper
Half two garlic bulbs and place under the pork
Roast in hot oven at 250deg C for 40 minutes , turn it down to 200 and roast for a further two hours
Should get a delicious crackling

Fennel and Apple Sauce

1 bulb of fennel
1 cooking apple
1 tsp of cumin seeds
1 tsp of honey

Place the fennel and apple in casserole dish cover and bake in the oven or simmer on the hob until soft

For more recipes and foodbloggers favourite supplier Pagnum over at the Yorkshire Food Blog have a great summary of recipes see  Pork Belly or is it Belly Pork?

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