Main: 

Jerk pork belly

A bit of West Indian cooking this week. Using the super delicious belly of pork. And coating it with this gorgeous jerk seasoning.

Cooking it to perfection, then it can be served in so many different ways.

That's the beauty. It looks like a lot of ingredients for the marinade, but you should have a lot of them lying around your cupboards.

Preparation time: 20 minutes, cooking time 4 hours

Recipe serves 8 people

Ingredients: 1.6 kg of pork belly, from your local butcher

Juice and zest of 2 limes

1 onion chopped

4 cloves of garlic

2 chillies (scotch bonnet)

25g grated ginger

35g spring onion

20g picked thyme

20g Rosemary

140ml rapeseed oil

40ml cider vinegar

20ml dark rum

25g all spice

40ml soy sauce

25g Chinese all spice

30g sea salt

25g cracked black pepper

Method: Score and portion the pork belly.

Use a food processor to blitz the rest of the ingredients.

Whizz it until it's a brown paste like mixture, it doesn't need to be completely smooth.

Rub it all over the pork belly, make sure to get right into the slits where you scored the meat.

Leave to marinade for a minimum of two hours.

Place in a tray and pour a splash of water into the bottom.

Cover with cling film and aluminium foil making sure it is sealed.

Place in the oven at 150 degrees for 3 1/2 hours.

Take off the foil and cling film, turn the oven up to 200 degrees and roast for approx 30 minutes until the jerk marinade becomes caramelised.

Take out the oven, leave to rest for a minute. Then slice into that succulent spiced meat and enjoy.

Perfect with sweet potato wedges and a beer in the sun!!

 

Dessert: 

White chocolate panna cotta with mixed berries

Everybody knows panna cotta. The famous Italian creamy dessert. There's so many different recipe versions for this, some more complex than others.

This one is simple. It also incorporates white chocolate which adds a whole other dimension.

Just be careful because once you have a spoonful you will struggle to stop, it's the adults version of angel delight!

Recipe serves 6 people

Preparation time 45 minutes plus 3 hours to set

Ingredients: 80g caster sugar

3 gelatine leaves

190ml milk

600ml double cream

One vanilla pod split lengthways

100g white chocolate

50g mixed berries

Orange and a lemon

Method: Put your milk, cream, sugar and vanilla pod in a pan and place on a low heat, stir continuously so that the sugar does not stick.

Bring to simmering point.

Soak the gelatine leaves in cold water.

Use a box grater to finely grate the White chocolate.

Add it to the simmering cream and stir.

Make sure it melts

The gelatine leaves should be soft by now, squeeze out the water from them and throw them into the cream mix.

Whisk to bring it all together, then remove the large bits of vanilla pod Leave it to cool down a little, then whisk again.

Pour the mix into moulds/serving dish, then place in the fridge for at least 3 hours.

You can use any type of fruit, for this recipe I'm using blackberries and raspberries It's a very simple, no cook compote.

Cut your berries into halves, toss them with sugar, lemon juice and orange juice.

Then leave to work it's magic.

Once the panna cotta is set, place on a plate.

If using moulds you might need to use hot water to help ease them out.

Place on a plate, all the vanilla seeds should be at the top.

Then spoon over your delicious berry compote.