bacon and beans recipe

From Tom

Recipe......

Err....

Warning: this is NOT a health food.

Bacon & beans;

Take a piece of good pork belly, this should have what seems to modern eye a large proportion of fat. Like 50%. Fit the size of the belly to the number of people you wish to feed, but people won't need a huge amount of the finished product, as its rich and filling, but then it will shrink. a peice the size of a sheet of A4 should do 4-6 depending on hunger.

Rub the skin with a LOT of salt, a mix of coarse and fine is best, to get great crackling. We don't put any other salt in any other parts of the dish. If you had to get a modern fat-less pig then you may first need a good glug of a neutral oil before the salt.

Put this in the oven, if you have all the time in the world go for 4 hours or more total time and put the oven on at 150c and if your a bit tighter for time you can go for 3 hours at ~170c. You could do 2 hours at 180c, but it just won't be as good. put the oven up to 200c for the last hour to crackle the crackling.

When you have 2 - 1.5 hours tilll the pig is done make the beans. these quantities will do 6-ish.

chop 1 shallot or a very small onion very finely & 2-3 cloves of garlic. Dice 150g of Chorizo, and drain 2x 400g cans of different beans (pinto & berlotti is my favourite combo, but any beans work, or a couple of cans of mixed beans).??

Fry the onion in a largeish sauce pan in the smallest amount of oil you can, and soften on a low heat, the add the chorizo, turn up the heat, and fry to release the chorizo oil and get a little colour. then chuck in the beans and garlic. add a glass of white wine, blakc pepper and some stock. (or a stock cube and some water). Turn down to stew.

Stew this till the pork is ready, adding a splash of water as necessary, thicken with whatever you like just a touch (cornflour, chicken bisto, Beurre mani??).??

Serve a square of the pork on a couple of spoons of the stewed beans, and crackling on top. Serve with something light and fresh veg-wise to cut through the fattiness. The beans make this a very filling dish.

Alex
http://blissfullyeccentric.blogspot.com