Pork belly with cranberry and apple sauce

Pork Belly

1. Grab yourself the most delicious looking pork belly from your local New World – if you can see some pork belly in the deli section, go and ask if the butcher or deli attendant can score the pork belly for you. Failing that, score the pork belly when you get home by slicing the skin with a sharp knife 1cm wide and 1/2cm deep.
2. Pre-heat your oven to 200°C. Chop your onions not too finely and thrown them in an oven proof dish (ideally you want this dish to be only a little bit bigger than the pork belly). Place your pork belly on top of the onions in the oven dish and pour in the ginger beer – you want the level of the ginger beer to be enough to cover the meat of the pork but not to touch the fat and/or skin of the pork.
3. Lightly oil the skin of the pork and sprinkle on some salt. Place in the oven and get that baby roasting for 30 minutes then reduce the oven temperature to 150°C. Cook for a further 2-2½ hours or until the pork is super tender and juicy, and the onions have caramelised. If at this point the skin is not quite as crispy, crackly and delicious as you want then turn your oven to grill for a couple of minutes and let it crisp up while keeping an eye on it.

Cranberry and Apple Sauce

1. Grab a medium sized frying pan or skillet and over a medium heat add the dried cranberries, finely diced apple and apple cider vinegar. Let this simmer away for about 5-10mins.
2. Add in the jar of whole cranberry sauce and keep stirring and simmering for a further 5 mins.
3. Now add in the chicken stock and turn the heat down to low and let the sauce simmer away for about 30mins, stirring occasionally until the sauce is the consistency that you desire.
4. Add a squeeze of lemon juice to taste.