Roast Pork Belly with Peas & Fino Sherry

This is one of Skye Gyngell’s recipes – I usually find her food over complicated but this is very good. We have fresh peas in the pod in the veg box and this is a great way of using them – not that I usually need an excuse for fatty belly pork.

2kg belly pork, skin on

500ml olive oil

2tbsp sea salt1 tbsp fennel seeds

2 red onions, roughly chopped

4 carrots, peeled

1 small bunch thyme

2 bay leaves

3 cloves garlic, peeled

300ml dry white wine

The peas

50ml olive oil

1 onion, chopped

4 cloves garlic

250g peas

120ml Fino sherry

400ml chicken stock

Sea salt & freshly ground pepper

60g unsalted butter

1 small bunch flat leaf parsley, chopped.

Frozen peas are fine if you don’t have fresh. The boy is podding ours and I’m hoping enough end up in the bowl as he does seem to like eating them straight from the pod. This is a big piece of meat but it is moreish. "Famine or feast" the boy says, mock wistfully.

Heat the oven to 200/Gas 6. Score the pork skin and rub with olive oil and then the salt and fennel seeds. Put in a roasting tin and cook, skin side up for 50 minutes. Reduce the heat to 160/Gas 3 and take the pork out of the pan. Share the rest of the bottle of white wine with the boy.

Put the onions, thyme, carrots, bay leaves, garlic and wine in the pan and mix it around. Put the pork on top and cover with foil and cook for another 2 hours. It will be incredibly tender with crunchy crackling. Give the boy a piece of crisp crackling to keep him going. 

Let it rest while you make the peas. Warm the oil and add the onion, cooking until soft. Add the garlic, peas and sherry and tun up the heat to allow the wine to bubble. Add the stock and cook until it reduces by a quarter. Not long at a proper boil. Season and add the butter. Stir in the parsley.

Cut the pork into long slices, 2 inches across and serve on top of a ladleful of the peas. The boy won't need calling to dinner - he has been watching like a hawk for the past half hour.