Remember to remove your flat pork belly joint out of the
packaging, pat dry and bring to room temperature.
Pre heat your oven to 200°C temperature fan assisted or 215°C
without a fan.
Scald the pork
rind by pouring over a full kettle onto the skin over a clean sink
with the pork resting on a wire tray.
Season the joint just prior to roasting.
Choose a large, heavy based roasting tray, ideally with deep
sides and handles for easy movement.
Season with good quality fine sea salt rubbing into the score
marks on the skin.
Make a trivet by roughly chopping equal amounts of onion,
carrot and celery or my preferred choice of celeriac, the root of
the celery plus a bay leaf, sprig of thyme and a few black
peppercorns, another nice addition can be a bramley apple peeled
and quartered to the trivet.
Place the pork skin side up onto the trivet which should line
the base of the tray.
Place in centre of oven and roast for 20 minutes then reduce
the temperature to 180°C then continue roasting for 40 minutes per
500g reaching a core temperature of minimum 75°C.
Remove from oven and pop onto a clean tray and keep warm by
covering with a sheet of tin foil then resting for a minimum of 20
minutes before carving, leaving the roasted vegetables in the tray
for the gravy.
For the gravy I make up 500 ml of essential cuisine chicken
stock, then deglaze roasting tray with this stock stirring all the
caramelized juices from the tray, then pass through a fine sieve
pushing all the juices from the vegetables into a clean sauce pan,
bring to the simmer and thicken if required by whisking in a
teaspoon of corn flour mixed with a little cold water and reduce
till you reach a rich glossy gravy.