BBQ Pork Belly (rolled, stuffed and smoked)

Rolled stuffed Pork Belly

We had been shopping at the Bad Schwartau Market on Sunday, this is a nice little Market, nothing like the Kiel one, but it is a nice friendly place with local butchers, farmers and fish merchants selling their produce. There is even a farmer selling his Galloway Beef.

Linda wanted chicken breasts as she was cooking a Thai Green Curry for our evening meal (she likes to keep her hand in now and again). I was cooking Sunday dinner (supper, evening meal call it what you will), I saw that they had some nice Pork Belly on the stall, so I bought a slab about the size of an A4 sheet of paper (makes it easier to remember). We sauntered around the stalls and bought some cold cuts (Boiled ham and some rough liver sausage for lunch), we then popped across to ALDI to get veg and some other things we required, before heading to our Asian (Vietnamese) shop to get whatever it was Linda needed for the Green Curry (it is a small but very well stocked shop and you will find lots of things that you will not find in normal Asian shops.

But in all reality that has very little to do with my rolled stuffed Pork Belly.

So let’s get the show on the road

Ingredients:

A piece of Pork Belly about 30 x 24 and a good 3 cm thick.

4 slices of whole meal bread

Handful of chopped sage leaves (I have fresh in the garden, but failing that, dried will do)

250g of onions

2 cloves of garlic

3 Cevapcici (you can use sausage meat, but the Cevapcici are already spiced so it cuts out one procedure)

1 heaped tsp of mustard (Dijon in this case)

Salt and pepper ( I also had brought back from the USA a lime, garlic and coriander rub)

This piece of belly still had some ribs in, so these needed first removing.

I made stock with them by adding them to a pan  with 500ml of made up marigold stock (you could use a veg stock cube),  an onion roughly diced, the stalks from some sage a crushed garlic clove, this would be made into the gravy later.

Turn the slab of belly over and scored the skin through to the fat and rubbed with salt and pepper (plenty of salt) and the lime, garlic and coriander rub. Covered and leave to mature overnight in the fridge.

Sunday morning.

Dice the onions and garlic, heat a small amount of oil in a pan and over a low heat soften them.

In a kitchen machine, chop up the bread, add the onions and garlic along with the Cevapcici and the mustard, blitz and season with salt and pepper. TASTE.

Spread the inside with the mixture, roll the slab of belly and tie into a neat roll, it is not difficult, TIP practice tying butchers knots first.

Place the roll into a roasting pan (it will not be roasted in this but it just stops any juices running all over the place) cover and set aside until needed, we were not eating until evening so it had plenty of time to rest.

I was smoking and roasting the meat so I got my smoker and BBQer stoked up, I was using pecan wood chips for the smoker and using the indirect method for BBQing.

I placed a pan below the meat to catch any drips (it also means that the bottom grid doesn’t get all gunged up.

Lid down and brought it up to heat and kept it at a steady 200°C for 1 hr and then tested the inner temperature with an electronic thermometer, it was only 60°C so I left it for another 20 minutes.

The resulting roast was very, very tasty, the crunchy crust(crackling) had a wonderful smoky flavour and the meat juicy and tender.

We had it with, Pommes Boulangère, apple and sage sauce, roasted Pumpkin and Pak Choi greens. Made a gravy from the stock that I had boiled the pork bones in.

I shall be doing this one again!

If you don’t have a BBQ or it is in the middle of winter, I suppose you could do it in the oven and use a BBQ rub or a liquid smoke, I don’t think it will be the same but none the less still tasty.