Pork Belly with Sticky Caramelised Onions

As i'm all excited for starting my blog i thought i'd post tonight's dinner, pork belly with caramelised onions. Pork belly is my favourite meat, it's one of the cheapest cuts of meat as it's fatty but that means it's full of flavour! I shopped at Morrisons for the first time the other day and saw that they had a fantastic meat selection for so cheap! The pork belly i bought in a 2 pack with stuffing for £1.70, what a bargain! 

As you can see in the picture i've cooked a couple of sausages to go with it, as i have a huge appetite (and also they were due to go off today so i thought why not). Personally i think that cooking sausages in the oven makes them taste loads better than frying and you can just put them straight in and not have to worry about them.The stuffing came with the pork but if it hadn't of done i would have just used a bit of a dried sage and onion stuffing mix, mixed it with boiling water and put a ball of it in the oven with it.


I cooked this pork belly for around 20 mins, at 200 degrees and turned it over half way through cooking. But depending on your oven it may take longer/quicker. You can see when it's ready when the fat starts to go a golden colour, a bit like bacon.


I thought: How could i jazz up this amazing cut of meat further? So decided to make caramelised onions, which are so easy to make. You'l need around a quarter to half an onion (I used half as i love onions). From past experience i think red onions are best but i only had a normal one which worked fine. Chop them up as finely as you can. In a hot pan, put a dash of oil in a frying pan with a large dollop of butter. The oil stops the butter from burning so you should always use it when frying anything. When the butter has melted, add 3 teaspoons of sugar. The sugar will melt into the butter to form a gooey caramel mix, when it does add the onions and fry for around 5 minutes. When you see the onions starting to brown, turn down the heat to low. 


The key ingredient to make caramelised onions special is balsamic vinegar. You can get it anywhere for around a quid. Add a dash to the onions and they'l turn a really nice brown colour. The balsamic cuts through the sugar and just makes them taste amazing! Take off the heat and sprinkle a tiny bit more sugar on top depending how sweet you want them. Leaving them to stand will make them go all sticky and gorgeous. 


When the pork is ready, plate it up and add the onions on top. I have SO many frozen chips in my freezer i cooked them to go with it, but making roasties or home made chips would vamp this up even more. I also had peas as i love them and i have them with everything! 

A little tip... if you want to make the onions into more of a sauce, add the juices from the meat into the pan, with a dash of red wine and a tiny bit of hot water. If its too runny add a little flour to thicken it. The onions are also really nice in gravy.


This is cheap, quick and fairly easy to cook. So have a try!


Bon Appetit,


Melon xxx