Braised pork belly and pig tails

Posted on December 15th, 2007 by Jeff

Have no clue what to actually call this dish. Yes this is one of those things where I looked at the butcher shop and go ohh…pig tails I wonder what I can do with those. Tada this is what you can do with them. Anyone else have any other tails ideas please let me know.

The meat and fat from the belly dissolved in your mouth with each bite. The taste constrasts between the belly and the tail really made this dish amazing.

To make this dish you are going to need:

1 lb of pork belly
1 lb of pork tails (I hate to say omit them if you can’t find them because they add such a wonderful taste dymanic to the dish)
1 onion sliced medium
2 carrots medium dice
2 stalks of celery medium dice
4 cloves of garlic finely chopped
1/2 cup of white wine
1 cup of chicken stock
2 bay leaves
4 sprigs of thyme
TB of unsalted butter
Kosher salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Over medium heat in an oven proof pan melt the 1 tb of butter. Salt and pepper the pork belly and tails. Add in the pork belly fatty side down and cook till brown (about five minutes). Flip it and brown the other side (about 5 minutes). Remove and set aside.

Add in the tails and cook till brown all over (about 8 minutes total). Once browned remove and set aside.

Dump all but 1tb of the fat in the pan out. Add in the onions, celery, and carrots and cook till softened (about 6 minutes). Add in the garlic and cook for another minute.

Add in the wine and reduce by 1/2.

Add in the stock, bay leaves, and thyme and bring to a boil. Add in the belly fat side up and the tails, cover, and place in the oven to cook till fork tender (about 3 hours yes that is 3 hours find something to do it goes quickly and makes the house smell really really really good). Also, I think I actually found the limit for how much I can cram in a 6 quart saute pan.

After the meat is cooked remove the pan from the oven. Remove the meat from the pan and place on a plate to rest.

Now we are going to strain the sauce 3 times. Yes you read that right. Strain once into a small saucepan. Strain it again lined with a double piece of cheesecloth into another bowl. Finally, using a fresh sheet of double cheesecloth strain it back into the small saucepan. I blame the triple strain on reading the French Laundry before bedtime and having these wild Thomas Keller like visions of what I can repeatedly strain to help the finish product.