Recipes

Pork Belly with Caviar

  • Serves

    serves 4

Santi Santamaria makes this dish with boneless pork neck, hard to find in this country; he recommends substituting pork belly.

Ingredients

For the Pork Belly

  • 3 12 cups fine salt
  • 14 cup freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 small red bell pepper, cored, seeded, and diced
  • 5 cloves garlic, crushed and peeled
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1 lb. fresh pork belly, with rind attached
  • 1 carrot, peeled, trimmed, and diced
  • 1 medium yellow onion, peeled and coarsely chopped
  • 1 celery leaf
  • 2 tsp. black peppercorns, cracked

For the Sauce and Serving

  • 10 oz. fingerling potatoes, peeled
  • 12 cup milk, hot
  • 3 tbsp. butter, melted
  • 12 tsp. olive oil
  • 12 medium shallot, peeled and finely minced
  • 2 tbsp. white wine
  • 14 cup vegetable stock
  • 8 tbsp. butter, cut into small pieces
  • Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
  • 3 oz. osetra caviar

Instructions

Step 1

Make the pork belly: Combine salt, ground pepper, bell peppers, 3 cloves of the garlic, and bay leaf in a large bowl. Pack pork in salt mixture, cover, and refrigerate overnight. Uncover pork, rinse, and put into a small pot. Discard salt mixture. Cover pork with water. Add carrots, onions, celery leaf, cracked peppercorns, and remaining garlic and bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, covered, for 5 hours. Transfer pork to a cutting board and set aside to let cool. Strain broth into a small pot, discarding solids, and set aside. Trim off rind and fatty top layer of pork, then cut pork into 4 pieces. Add pork to broth and keep warm over lowest heat.

Step 2

Make the potatoes: Boil potatoes in a pot of salted water over medium-high heat until soft, 15–20 minutes. Drain, then pass through a potato ricer or a food mill into a sieve set over a medium bowl. Press potatoes through sieve. Stir milk and butter into potatoes and season to taste with salt and pepper. Cover with plastic wrap to keep warm.

Step 3

Make the sauce: Heat oil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add shallots and cook for 1 minute. Add wine and boil until almost evaporated, about 3 minutes. Add stock and bring to a simmer. Add butter, 1 tbsp. at a time, whisking thoroughly after each addition. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Strain sauce through a sieve into a medium bowl, then transfer to canister of "cream whipper".

Step 4

To serve, divide potatoes between four warm bowls. Put one piece of pork in center of potatoes in each bowl, discarding broth. Following manufacturer's directions, aerate sauce in cream whipper into a small bowl. Spoon some of the foamed sauce around meat on each plate. Garnish meat with a spoonful of caviar and spoon a bit more caviar onto sauce.

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