Roast pork belly erh with crackling !

I thought maybe as my blog was called Roast pork with crackling I might as well post a piece on the great creature. Well to be honest I fancied something substantial for my dinner today and it was all I had in the freezer last night when I was looking for something to take out which in a way shows what a great thing it is as even though it was frozen it was still mighty tasty. I hope I am not insulting you by saying that I defrosted the belly overnight and did not cook it from frozen. I am trying to say it had loads of taste despite it being frozen since Easter time.

First switch the oven on to about 200 - 220 degrees C. While waiting rub salt into the  skin to help it attain the lovely crackling skin. Then I placed the Belly onto a trivet containing onion, carrot, 1 halved Apple, and one halved pear which I would use to make a sauce with.
When the oven is at temperature put it into the oven for about 30 minutes. After this time I drop it to about 150 degrees C and leave it for about 2 hours.
Hey Presto lovely succulent meat and fab crackling.
I know I have made this crackling making sound a bit simple and those kitchen pixies I talk about a lot have jumped into the oven and made this crackling by magic in two and a half hours,but I am not a cooking techno geek who can tell you down the finest scientific detail the reason or how you produce crackling alchemy I just know it works for me and really being a bit thick probably would not understand Mr Heston if he came up with one of his very clever formulas for it and there will be a scientific formula to make it.
Cooking to me is an art and a love and a passion and I do not want it to be a science. I want it to surprise me every time I put my spoon in a sauce, I want it to wow me with vibrant colours of seasonal vegetables. I do not want grey from my cooking I want a rainbow every time.
Anyway get off your soap box your dinner is getting cold. Ha ha.
Any way at this point I could eat the lot with a bowl of apple sauce but today I serve it with buttery cabbage and creamy silky smooth mash.
The sauce was very easy. I made a paste with flour and a can of strongbow cider that I found out in the shed from xmas (which xmas I was not sure !).
I cooked the flour out for a few minutes then poured into it some hot stock made from knorr pork stock cubes. I then added the flesh from the pear and apple from the trivet and let nature infuse its flavours for 30 minutes.when it was ready I past it through a sieve to take any bits out of it.

It was a lovely meaty sauce with a sweet background flavour that was made for each other.

I think a lot of people think its just a fatty meat but even though I like fat its not really. The fat helps keep the meat moist during cooking and its a very tasty cheap cut of meat.