Slow Braaied Belly of Pork

November 16, 2012 by Larry Susman in Meat, Braai, Pork, Big Green Egg, Recipes, Roasts

Slow Braaied Belly of Pork with Ginger-Caramel Sauce

This week I will be braaiing a belly of pork which will give you everything you could want from one dish. This has become a dish that every pub and restaurant seems to have on their menu and the reason for this is that its cheap to make. The only problem is that it take a long time to cook as you need to do this nice and slowly so that all the excess fat is melted away.

Serves 4-6 - Prep: 30 mins - Cook Time: 4-5 hours

Ingredients for Ginger-Caramel Sauce

¼ cup of palm sugar
¼ cup water
2 x red chillies cut into slithers
2 x green chillies cut into slithers
1 x root of fresh ginger cut into slithers
2 tbs Thai fish sauce
1 x juice of fresh lime

Ingredients for Pork

3 kg of Belly of pork with ribs left on
2 x Cups of chicken stock
1 x cup of soy sauce
2 x star anise
1 x cinnamon stick
1/2 cup sugar
1 tbs salt
1 tbs juniper berries

Method for making Caramel Sauce

In a saucepan, slowly bring the palm sugar and water to the boil.
Simmer until mixture starts to caramelise.
Add the chillies, ginger, Thai fish sauce and lime juice and cook slowly for 2 more minutes

Method for cooking Pork

Preheat the Braai to 300°C (570°F)
Score the pork in lines about 2.5cm/1 inch apart, just through the skin.
Rub the salt into the skin, this will help it crisp up
Place the pork into a deep pan
Add stock and spice to the pan, place in the braai and close the lid for 15-20 mins, so that it seals the meat nicely
Bring the heat of the braai down to 180°C (355°F) cover and leave to cook for 3-4hrs
Make sure that you check that the stock has not evaporated, if it does add some water to it

You can serve this with mashed potatoes and vegetables or rice and salad, whatever take your fancy. I've gone with the mash and veg as it's turning cold over here now and this makes for a great winters evening dinner.

To serve this you are going to have to dissect the pork into its three different components. Take the meat off the braai (or out of the oven) and leave to sit for 20 mins, this will relax the meat and stop the juices from coming out.

Then slide a sharp knife under the skin and take it off so that you can either put it back on the braai or under a hot grill to crisp up quickly and make the crackling crispy.

Next slide the knife under the main part of the meat but just over the ribs. This will separate the two, see images for this. Cut the ribs up and portion the meat ready to serve.

As you can see this makes for a hearty meal on a cold day, plate up and the pour the Caramel sauce over the meat and potato (definitely not the crackling) serve up the freshly steamed vegetables and you're ready to go. This will lift the whole dish and give it the wow factor.

Give this ago, you will not be disappointed, until next week enjoy......

Fruity Duck

September 14, 2012 by Larry Susman in Duck, Braai, Pork, Big Green Egg, Recipes, Roasts

Stuff a Duck!

Wow! Have we been having some great weather down in the South (of the UK), I hope that you are all still Braaiing away and have not become soft and put them away at the first sign of a cloud. Thanks for all the great comments about last weeks Curry, a lot of you have been trying this and I hope that you have enjoyed following us. We had 5 lots of prizes last week and the lucky winners are Geoff Worrall, Jane Phillipson, Jim Bates, Liz Riches-Jones and Linda Tingvoll please email me your delivery addresses and we will get them to you as soon as we can. One thing I ask, please email a photo of your creations so that I can post them on our Facebook page for all to see.

This weeks creation is quick and turned out to be really tasty, for the amount of effort that went in to preparing this dish you will be pleasantly surprised.

Serves 4 - Prep: 10 minutes - Cook Time: 12-16 mins

Method

Preheat the braai to about 200°C (400°F)
Using a sharp knife, cut a long slit in the fleshy side of each duck breast to make a pocket that you will layer the shallots and apricots in. You will then seal the parcel with a skewer
Mix the honey and the sesame oil together in a bowl and brush all over the duck both sides. Then sprinkle with the Chinese five spice all over.
To make the spring onion garnish, cut lengthways down the stem of each on both sides and leave in ice cold water until the tassels open out. Drain well before using.
Cook the duck over a medium heat of 6-8 minutes on each side.
Remove the skewers and cut in half, serve on a bead of rice with the spring onions to garnish.

Ingredients:

4 Duck Breasts (1 per person) you can substitute pork chops if you prefer
155g / 4oz dried apricots
2 Shallots or red onion thinly sliced
2 tbsp clear honey
1 tsp sesame oil (olive if you don't have)
2 tsp Chinese Five-Spice powder (Contains: finely ground Sichuan Pepper, cassia, fennel seed, star anise and cloves)
4 Spring onions to garnish
4 bamboo Skewers (pre soaked in water for 1hr)

The apricots and onions counteract the richness of the duck and its high fat contents make it virtually self-basting so it stays superbly moist and when you garnish it with the spring onion it looks particularly elegant. I served this once again with some steamed rice, I know, I like rice and if you come from SA you eat a lot of it. Give it a try, its quick and tastes as good as it looks. Just don't over cook it, otherwise you might as well cook your flops!

Rib Fest.

August 24, 2012 by Larry Susman in Meat, Braai, Food Websites, Pork, Big Green Egg

Smoked Pork Ribs 3 different ways.

Look out for this button on their web site in the navigation bar.

Gee, how time flies when your having fun! Big news is we have now sorted out the Special Offer Starter packs so that you can buy the "The Big Green Eggs". Take a look at our site for all the different combinations http://www.biltong.co.uk/Category/biggreenegg . Please note that you cannot order directly on our web site but there is a link where you will be taken to the UK site for the Big Green Egg. All you need to do is enter the Promo Code in the Promo Box and it will list everything for you. If you have any problems just drop me a line or call us on +44 (0)1273 516160.

On to this weeks adventure, I have made Baby Back Pork Ribs and used three different marinades that we sell on line, this is to speed things up for all you busy people, I will be revisiting this again at a later date with some home made marinades and I will compare these against the shop ones them.

Win these marinades free (see details at the end)

All I added was some Hickory wood chips that I had soaked in water for over and hour, which I added to the coals when I put the ribs on to cook. I only used a handful as I did not want to over smoke them and stop the flavours of the marinades from coming though.

This meal is not difficult but it needs a little forethought but will definitely be a family favourite. Ideally you need to marinade your ribs over night but if this is not possible these marinades will give a great result if you can give them at least 30 minuets to work.

Ingredients: Serves as many as you want (if you share!)

3 racks of Bay Back Pork Ribs. Allow one rack of Baby Back Ribs per person (especially if your a South African carnivore)
One of each of the marinades above if you are going to make all 3 types (the Jimmy's and Spur sauces will be enough for at least 3 racks per bottle but the SSA rubs will only do 2 racks)
Hand full of Hickory wood chips
Sweet and normal potatoes
Assortment of salads to accompany (I will post some salad recipes at a later date)

Lay you ribs out in a tray or on a work surface and sprinkle your spices onto the ribs, massage them into the meat for a couple of seconds and then place into a long bag or wrap in cling film. For the wet marinades a bag is really a better bet and will make life a lot easier. Once you have sealed your bags place in the fridge to marinade for as long as possible.

When you are ready to cook take the ribs out of the fridge and allow to come back to room temperature, this helps the meat to relax prior to cooking. Pre-heat your oven or Egg to about 120°C (230°F), sprinkle the wood chipping onto the coals, if you are using the Egg or braai and place the ribs onto the grill. It's important that you diffuse the heat with either a heat diffuse for the egg, a bowl or aluminium tray if you are using a braai, as you want to slow cook this for about 2-3 hours. Place you potatoes, wings and anything else that you are cooking in at the same time and close the lid. Try not to peek at them as this will let out the heat and smoke, trust the fact that you set you braai up correctly and they are not going to burn at that temperature.

I only cooked these for 21/2hrs and turned up the heat to 250°C (480°F) for 20 minuets at the end to crisp up the wings and rib ends, perfection.

You can see that the ribs have taken on a loverly deep rich colour, due to the smoking. I must say that the end result from all three marinades was very good. They all had very different and distinctive flavours. The general opinion from the lucky people who ate these was that they could not choose a favourite. In fact, because there was a mixture it made them all taste even better. The Jimmy's gave that spicy but sweet taste that you would have got from the Black Steers steakhouses in SA (before they closed, god i miss those days!). The Spur Hickory was sticky and very smoky with our added smoke but had that definite Spur flavour that its so famous for. Finally the SSA smoke rub, this was my personal favourite, once again the smoke flavour came out with a very spicy taste with a distinctive burn from the chilli and mustard seeds in the spice rub. If you can make all three you will definitely not be disappointed otherwise it will depend on your mood, sweet or spicy, gee I still can't make my mind up. Enjoy!

2 lucky people will win a pack of each of the marinades used this week!

All you have to do is leave us some feed back in the comment area below, I know this is a bribe but I really would like to know if we are giving you what you want. The stats show that there are hundreds of you looking at this blog each week (we are only 1 month old, so thanks for all the interest). So don't be shy, let everybody know what your thoughts are, the winners will be drawn at random by Thursday next week and posted on here for all to see.