Roast belly of pork with apple sauce from The River Cottage Meat Book by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

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Notes about this recipe

  • Bessp on October 07, 2025

    Delicious! I left the crackling in place when slicing, I think it looks nicer that way. I modified the apple sauce significantly, based on our tastes, and served with mashed potatoes and a green salad, as recommended. To the apples in the pan I added: a solid knob of butter, the zest of the lemon, a bunch of thyme, some chicken stock concentrate, and a good glug of apple cider. My family was very happy with dinner, I will definitely make this again.

  • twoyolks on February 07, 2021

    I also didn't have any pork skin but the fat got so crispy that I'm not sure I missed it. Flavor is great. The apple sauce goes very well with it. Only issue is that it's rich so I can't eat too much of it.

  • Emily Hope on December 03, 2010

    Genius. So simple and easy, but got the most raves of all the dishes at the dinner party it was served at. Of course, it's hard to go wrong with pork belly! Due to incompetent butchers, I ended up with belly that didn't have the skin, so no crackling, alas, but the recipe worked fine despite the lack of skin. Roasted until it looked done, and later put back in a lower oven for a while to rewarm... this seemed to render out more fat w/o drying the meat too much, so I wonder if a slightly longer baking time would be preferable? Will need to experiment. Managed to eke out 8-ish servings from a shy 3 pounds of belly, but I think 3 pounds for 6 people is safer. Served with: veggie minestra (deb madison), homemade applesauce and pear chutney (both disappeared but I think I prefer the chutney), clay-pot potatoes (deb madison), a cabbage/fennel/apple slaw with walnuts, homemade bread (tartine bread book, also a hit), and apple crisp w/bourbon currants (rustic fruit desserts)

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