Caramelised belly pork with sour [Morello] cherries
With a heatwave forecast for the next three days, I thought it might be a good idea to cook dinner this morning, while everything was still nice and cool. So I did, and it turned out to be one of the yummiest recipes I’ve ever tried. Sadly I can’t post a photo because we ate it before I thought of taking one.
The idea for the recipe came from Aussie chef Kylie Kwong. She makes a delicious looking dish with bacon, red wine and cherries :
http://www.abc.net.au/kyliekwong/recipes/s952509.htm
My version is a much simpler dish featuring fresh belly pork and sour cherries, two ingredients I almost always keep on hand.
Ingredients [for 2]
4 lean rashers of fresh belly pork :
2 cups of sour, Morello cherries and [their] juice. They come in a jar like this and 2 cups will be approximately 2/3 of the jar :
1/4 cup raw sugar
2 cloves garlic [crushed]
1 fresh bay leaf or 2? dried ones
1/2 of a large white salad onion roughly sliced
1 tablespoon peanut oil
1/2 teaspoon table salt
Method
Mix all the ingredients of the ‘marinade’ in a baking dish just large enough to hold the meat. Arrange the pork in the marinade and spoon the cherries and onion mix over the top — i.e. you cook the pork in the marinade straight away.
Loosely cover the baking dish with foil and place in a moderate oven [approx 150 C] for about an hour.
[I don’t like the flavour of the bay leaf to be too overpowering so I removed it when I turned the meat — after about 1/2 an hour].
When the meat is tender, remove the foil and allow to bake for a further 1/2 an hour or until most of the juices have evaporated leaving a lovely, caramelised sauce over the meat.
Allow to stand for 10 minutes before slicing and serving, or make ahead and refrigerate until needed.
[I made it ahead and heated it up for dinner…but only until the meat was just warm and the sauce sticky. Over cooking at this point could burn the whole dish].
The Offspring and I ate a small lettuce and avocado salad first, as a sort of entree. Then we ate the meat on its own. It was so rich we didn’t need anything else. I think this is going to become one of my favourite no-fuss dishes.
cheers
Meeks
