Slow-Roasted, Sticky, Crackling and All

When I was a boy in Guadeloupe, pork was not a Tuesday thing. Pork was an occasion. Somebody had a reason to cook, a christening, a birthday, the end of a long week, and the pig came out. The men stood around the fire arguing about heat like it was a religion. My mother stayed in the kitchen and let them argue, because she knew the fire was only half of it.

Behind our house there was a passion fruit vine, maracudja, growing up the fence like it owned the place. My mother sent me out with a bowl to pick them. I would split one open on the way back and eat it standing in the yard, sour enough to make my whole face fold up. She always knew. She counted the fruit.

That sourness was the point. She used it against the fat. Pork belly is rich, unapologetically so, and if you do not put something sharp and bright next to it, three bites in you are finished. So she made a glaze: passion fruit, brown sugar, lime, a little heat. Sticky and sour and sweet all at once. You ate the pork, then the glaze cut straight through it, and you were hungry again.

I still cook it that way in England. The fire is now an oven, the vine is now a jar, and the pork comes from my butcher in a tidy rectangle instead of off a spit. But it tastes like my mother’s yard, and that is what matters.

Let me show you how I make it.

Recipe at a glance

• Cuisine: French Caribbean (Guadeloupe)
• Prep: 20 minutes • Cook: 3 hours • Total: 3 hours 20 minutes
• Serves: 6
• Featured sauce: Exotic Caribbean Sauce
• Heat level: 3/10, warm and fruity, not fierce
• Diet: Gluten free, dairy free

What you’ll need

Buy the belly with the skin on and the bones out. Ask your butcher to score the skin if you do not fancy doing it yourself, though I will tell you below how to do it properly, because it is the difference between crackling and chewing.

Everything here is easy to find in a UK supermarket. The passion fruit does not come from a fruit, it comes from a jar, and that is the whole trick.

For the pork

• 1.5kg pork belly, skin on, bones removed
• 2 tbsp fine sea salt, for drying the skin
• 4 garlic cloves, crushed
• 2 spring onions, finely chopped
• 2 tsp ground allspice
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp dried thyme, or the leaves from 4 fresh sprigs
• 1 tsp coarse black pepper
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• Juice of 1 lime
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil

For the sticky glaze

• 4 tbsp Exotic Caribbean Sauce
• 3 tbsp soft dark brown sugar
• 3 tbsp pineapple juice
• Juice of 1/2 lime
• 1 tbsp dark rum (leave it out if you like, the glaze still works)
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard

To serve

• Rice and red beans
• 2 ripe plantains, sliced and fried
• Lime wedges

How I make it

1. Dry the skin, the night before if you can. Pat the belly with kitchen paper until it stops leaving a mark. Rub the 2 tbsp of fine salt over the skin only, then sit it uncovered on a plate in the fridge overnight. If you have no time, an hour will still help you. Wet skin never crackles. This is the whole secret and it costs you nothing but patience.

2. Score the skin. Turn the belly skin-side up. With a very sharp knife or a clean blade, cut parallel lines about 1cm apart, going through the skin and just into the fat underneath. Do not cut into the meat. If you hit meat, the juices come up through the cuts during roasting and steam the skin soft.

3. Make the seasoning. In a bowl, mix the garlic, spring onions, allspice, ginger, thyme, black pepper, cinnamon and lime juice with the oil. It will look like a wet green-brown paste and it will smell like Sunday.

4. Season the meat side only. Turn the belly over and rub the paste hard into the flesh and the sides. Now brush the salt off the skin and wipe it dry again. Nothing wet goes on that skin. Nothing.

5. Slow roast. Heat the oven to 160C fan (180C conventional). Sit the pork skin-side up on a rack over a roasting tin, or on a bed of roughly chopped onion if you have no rack. You want air moving underneath. Roast for 2 hours 30 minutes. The house will start to smell serious around the hour mark.

6. Make the glaze while it roasts. Put the Exotic Caribbean Sauce, brown sugar, pineapple juice, lime juice, rum and mustard into a small pan. Bring it to a gentle bubble and let it go for 5 to 6 minutes, stirring, until it coats the back of a spoon. Take it off the heat. It thickens more as it cools, so do not cook it to toffee.

7. Blast it for crackling. After 2 hours 30, turn the oven up to 220C fan. Give it 25 to 30 minutes. Stay in the kitchen for this part. The skin will bubble and pop and go the colour of dark honey. If one corner is lagging behind, turn the tin around. When you tap it and it sounds hollow, you are done.

8. Rest it. Lift the pork onto a board and leave it alone for 15 minutes. Do not cover it with foil, foil traps steam and steam kills crackling. Fifteen minutes is enough for the juices to settle.

9. Cut first, glaze second. Slice the belly into thick fingers, going down through the crackling with a heavy knife in one confident push. Sawing at it will shatter the top.

10. Now the sticky part. Brush the warm glaze onto the cut sides and the meat, not the crackling. Let the crackling stay dry and loud. Pour the rest of the glaze into a small bowl and put it on the table for dipping.

11. Serve it hot. Rice and red beans underneath, fried plantain alongside, lime wedges for whoever wants more sharpness. Then sit down before it goes cold.

The role of Exotic Caribbean Sauce in this dish

Pork belly is fat and sugar and salt. Beautiful, but it is one long note. It needs something to argue with it.

Exotic Caribbean Sauce is built on passion fruit with a gentle chilli behind it, so it does two jobs at once here. The fruit acid cuts the fat the way my mother’s fresh maracudja did, sharp enough that the second slice tastes as good as the first. The chilli sits low and warm underneath, more of a hum than a burn, which is why this recipe works for a table with children at it.

And because there is real fruit in the jar, it caramelises. When that sugar meets brown sugar and heat, it goes glossy and thick and clings to the meat instead of running off the plate. That is the sticky you want. You cannot get it from sweetness alone, you need the fruit.

If you want more fire, this is not the jar to reach for. Serve Caribbean Hot Sauce on the side and let people help themselves. Never change the glaze on the whole tray for one person.

Tips from my kitchen

Buy a thick, even piece. A belly that is thin at one end will dry out at that end while the fat side is still rendering. Ask the butcher for the middle cut. It costs no more and it cooks straight.

Salt the skin, never oil it. Oil on the skin steams it. Salt draws water out. People get this backwards constantly and then blame their oven.

If the crackling refuses. It happens, usually because the skin was damp. Cut the crackling off in one sheet, lay it on a baking tray, and put it back under a hot grill for 4 or 5 minutes while the meat rests. Watch it, it turns from perfect to burnt in about twenty seconds.

Do not glaze early. Sugar at 220C burns black. Every time. The glaze goes on after the pork comes out, never before.

Keep the drippings. What collects in the tin under that pork is liquid gold. Spoon the fat off the top and stir a spoon of the dark juices left underneath into your rice. Nobody will know why the rice tastes so good.

What to serve it with

Rice and red beans is the honest answer, because that is what was on the table back home and it soaks up the glaze. Fried plantain next to it, sliced thick on the diagonal, sweet and soft against the salt of the pork.

If you want something green and fresh to lighten the plate, a simple cabbage and carrot slaw dressed with Fresh Herbal Sauce does it beautifully, no heat, just herbs and brightness.

And if there is leftover pork the next day, chop it small, fry it hard in a pan until the edges crisp, and put it in a soft roll with a spoon of BBQ Sauce. That sandwich is the reason I sometimes cook a bigger belly than I need.

FAQ

Can I make Caribbean pork belly ahead of time?

Yes, and I often do when I am feeding a crowd. Do the slow roast the day before, cool it, and keep it in the fridge. On the day, bring it back to room temperature, then give it the 220C blast for 25 to 30 minutes. The crackling actually comes out better this way, because the skin has had another night to dry out in the cold air.

Why is my crackling soft in the middle?

Almost always one of three things. The skin was wet when it went in. You scored too deep and juices came up through the cuts. Or the pork was sitting flat in the tin instead of on a rack, so the middle sat in its own steam. Fix the rack first, it is the easiest one.

How spicy is this recipe?

Gentle. Exotic Caribbean Sauce sits around 3 out of 10 for me, and by the time it is cooked into sugar and pineapple juice, the heat is more of a warmth at the back than anything sharp. Children eat this at my table. Put a hot sauce on the side for the adults who want to push it further.

Can I use pork shoulder instead?

You can, but it is a different dish. Shoulder has no skin to crackle and it wants longer and lower, more like 4 hours, until it pulls apart. The glaze works on it just as well. But if you want that shattering top, you need belly.

Is this recipe gluten free?

The pork and the glaze are, and all our sauces are gluten free and vegan. The only thing to check is your Dijon mustard, since a few brands are not, and whatever you serve alongside. Rice and beans and plantain keep it simple.

Final word from me

This is a slow recipe, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. Three hours in the oven, one night of drying if you are organised. But almost none of that is work. You season it, you close the door, you get on with your day, and the house does the rest.

Then you carve it at the table and somebody hears that crackling break and stops talking. That is my favourite sound in cooking. It has not changed since I was a boy standing in my mother’s yard with a bowl of passion fruit.

Cook it on a Sunday. Invite one more person than you planned for.

JP