Pork Belly With Beans
Over at Gluten Free Girl And The Chef, Shauna James Ahern admits it’s been difficult getting into the holiday spirit. I couldn’t agree more.
The past week has seen me writing and discarding countless drafts to that effect. All sounded too whiny, too negative, too miserable. But recent months have seen too many deaths and health woes to find us singing carols and knocking back the eggnog.
There was my father-in-law’s death in October. Last week we learned a power soccer acquaintance died days shy of his 23rd birthday. Yesterday I ran into a former colleague. Her partner of 28 years died last spring.”It’s my first Christmas without her,” she said.
A lot of people I know are having that Christmas.
—
Last minute holiday errands and countless hours spent battling medical insurance idiocy left little time for cooking this week–or photographing what cooking I did manage, like this pork belly with beans.
Pork belly with beans may sound dour. Trust me: it’s anything but. Fergus Henderson, in his classic The Whole Beast, has this to say of pork belly:
Pork belly is a wonderful thing. It’s onomatopoeic, belly is like it sounds–reassuring, steadying, and splendid to cook due to its fatty nature.
That fatty nature makes this dish, adapted from Tamasin Day-Lewis’s Kitchen Bible, extremely forgiving, both to cook and keep in your fridge, where it will only improve with time. These qualities are especially useful just now, when you may find your home filling with friends, relatives and their associates. Often these people require feeding, and as Nigella Lawson, yet another Brit, observes in Feast,
One of the difficulties of an impending feast–panic, the weight of expectation and family tensions aside–is everyone acts as if that is the only meal on the horizon.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the case, meaning hosts and hostesses, whether overjoyed or outraged, must offer additional sustenance. Pork belly and beans is one possibility. You can feed two, as I do, or increase amounts to feed many more. And while good, moral, true-blue NorCal cooks soak their dried beans overnight (which would only improve this dish), here at the IK we’re in the open-a-can stage. Okay, it’s an organic can of beans. But it’s still a can. And the dish is still terrific.
I am an ardent fan of Becker Lane Pork. They have no idea I’m writing this.
Pork Belly And Beans
Adapted from Tamasin’s Kitchen Bible by Tamasin Day-Lewis
Yield: 2-4 servings
Cooking time: approximately 2 hours
1 1/2 pounds meaty pork belly, preferably organic
bouquet garni: a bay leaf tied and a few sprigs parsley and thyme, tied with kitchen string
1 15-ounce can butter or navy beans (I like Eden or Muir Glen brands), drained and well rinsed
1 pint or 15 ounce can crushed tomatoes
one medium onion or shallot, peeled and chopped
3-4 large garlic cloves, peeled and minced
a tablespoon tomato paste
I teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
a little olive oil
Optional ingredients:
one peeled carrot, sliced into coins
a few stalks of celery, stringed and chopped
more garlic, if you’re a garlic lover
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.
Using your sharpest knife, slice the pork belly into cubes. If it has a rind, trim it off. If you’re having difficulty with the knife slipping, chill the meat in the freezer for a few minutes to firm it up.
Rind can be saved, divided up into small portions and frozen, for use in soups, stews, and anywhere you might otherwise need a little fat.
Set the pork aside a moment.
Place a 3 or 4 quart oven-safe heavy pot or casserole over medium-low heat. Enameled cast iron with a lid is ideal, but any oven-safe, heavy-duty pot will do. Heat a film of olive oil in the pot. Lay the bouquet garni inside, add the pork, then add the rest of the ingredients. Stir gently so everything melds.
The liquid should be level with the beans and pork, neither swamping it nor leaving food to dry out. If there isn’t enough liquid–highly unlikely–add a little broth, white wine, or even just water.
Add the lid, or cover tightly with foil. Place in oven. Check after ninety minutes; dish is ready when pork can be cut with a spoon.
Sprinkle with parsley, if you’ve got it–I often don’t, as evident above. The dish turns out well anyway. Tamasin Day-Lewis suggests serving this with mashed potatoes. We more modestly eat it with bread and either green salad or cooked greens.
Notes:
Pork belly isn’t a dish you can rush, but you could crank the oven to 325.
For a vegetarian option, add one leek, well cleaned and sliced, white and light green parts. You could also add waxy potatoes. This will cook faster: check after an hour.
If your oven is occupied, this can be made stovetop: place pot on a medium low burner. Keep at low simmer; cooking time may be a bit longer, depending on your oven and the cooking vessel.
