Pork Belly Roast

Pork roast is probably the quintessential Danish cuisine: Pork, seasoned with nothing more fancy than salt (and possibly black pepper), served with potatoes and brown gravy. It's also winter food - few people find it ideal to eat such heavy (fatty) meals when it's too warm in the weather.

Traditionally it's made with a piece of meat with the skin still on it cut from the back of the pig. I haven't been able to find such a cut of pork here in California, but some years ago I found a small store that carries pork bellies with the skin still on it. Basically it's giant slab of uncured bacon - it's not perfect in the sense that the meat to fat ratio is a little lower than the cuts traditionally used, but at least it has the skin on it. And the skin is quite important - the true test of one's cooking skills in Denmark is to turn out a pork roast on which the skin has been cooked to crispy perfection...

Ingredients:
- 1 pork belly (see picture)
- salt & pepper
- water
- potatoes
- flour
- gravy color [1]
- red cabbage sauerkraut

The pork belly wasn't of equal thickness over the entire piece, so I cut it in two pieces each having even thickness because the thickness is quite important in the crisping of the skin towards the end of the procedure. The two pieces of meat were put in an oven-proof tray with the skin down, and enough water to fully submerge the skin was added. This was then placed in the oven at 175 C (350 F) for 30 minutes.

After this the skin was softened appreciably and could easily be scored as shown in the picture (taking care not to cut the actual meat). The skin was salted generously and the roast was put back in the oven, now with the skin up, still at 175 C (350 F) for 1.5 hours. At this point the larger of the 2 pieces already had the skin turned nice and crisp, while the smaller one wasn't quite right. The bigger piece was removed from the oven and sliced, the drippings were collected and the smaller piece went back in the oven at 275 C (525 F) to try to get the skin crisp on this piece as well. I wasn't very successful about this part of it - I was a little afraid to overdo it as it can quickly burn at this temperature.
While the roast was in the oven peeled potatoes were boiled in lightly salted water and when properly tender, the water was collected.

To make the gravy I took a tbsp of fat from the drippings, stirred in flour to make a paste, then with constant stirring added the potato water in small portions until a gravy of wanted texture was obtained - this was then seasoned with salt and pepper, colored with a few drops of gravy color.

Slices of pork belly roast was served with boiled potatoes, brown gravy and red cabbage. Pickles would also have gone well with this dish.

[1] Gravy color is a viscous liquid, highly concentrated in the same coloring agent as used to make Cola.