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Recipe Roast Pork Belly with Garlic Root Vegetable Wedges paleo diet-min

Recipe: Roast Pork Belly with Garlic Root Vegetable Wedges

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Who doesn't love pork belly!? It’s such a juicy, flavoursome and indulgent cut of meat. In this recipe, however, the vegetables are the star of the show. The wedges are everything they should be; crisp on the outside, soft and gooey in the middle, and seasoned to perfection. The beauty of using three different root vegetables is the contrast in flavours you get – no two wedges are the same!

Recipe: Roast Pork Belly with Garlic Root Vegetable Wedges
 
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Recipe type: Dinner
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Ingredients
  • 1.25kg organic pork belly
  • 1 tbsp lard
  • Sea Salt
  • Cracked Black Pepper
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 2 medium sweet potatoes
  • 1 swede
  • 4 medium parsnips
  • 2 tbsp ghee / coconut oil (melted)
  • Sea salt
  • Cracked Black Pepper
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
Instructions
  1. Preheat your oven to 240C / 475F. Score the pork belly across the skin with a sharp knife, and then massage in the lard. Season well with salt, pepper and garlic powder.
  2. Place the meat skin side up in a large roasting dish. Place on the top shelf of the oven for 15 minutes, until the skin starts to bubble and is golden brown. At this point, lower the heat to 180C / 350F, and set the timer for an hour and a quarter.
  3. Peel the vegetables, and remove the core from the parsnips. Chop into wedges about 2cm thick – and don’t be afraid to leave jagged edges, as these will go lovely and crispy. Arrange them all in a roasting dish, and toss in the melted ghee / coconut oil. Season well with the salt, pepper and garlic powder, and transfer to the bottom shelf of the oven when there are 40 minutes left on the timer. Toss once or twice during the cooking time.
  4. When the time is up, remove the pork from the oven and leave to rest for 10 minutes. Carve the meat, and remove the wedges from the oven to serve alongside.

Recipe Roast Pork Belly with Garlic Root Vegetable Wedges paleo diet-min

Which fats & oils do you actually use paleo diet coconut oil lard tallow olive oil cooking-min

Which fats & oils do you actually use?

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All of the Paleo blogs you read rave about Coconut oil – but is this the fat people really use? I asked the followers of my Facebook page The Paleo Network this exact question:

Which fat and oils do you use?

And with over 300 mentions of different fats and oils, guess which was the most popular?!

That’s right – Coconut Oil with 48% of all the votes!

Which fats & oils do you actually use paleo diet coconut oil lard tallow olive oil cooking-min

Unsurprisingly, Olive Oil was the second most popular at almost 12%, followed by butter, Ghee, Bacon Fat, Avocado, Lard, Tallow then Duck Fat. Less popular, with a few mentions were Grape Seed Oil, Walnut, Dripping, Macadamia Oil, Chicken Fat, Hemp Oil, Oil, Rice Bran and Safflower Oil – see the full list below:

  • Coconut Oil 48.0%
  • Olive Oil 11.7%
  • Butter 9.0%
  • Ghee 7.7%
  • Bacon Fat 7.0%
  • Avocado Oil 5.3%
  • Lard 3.0%
  • Tallow 2.0%
  • Duck Fat 1.3%
  • Grape Seed Oil 1.0%
  • Walnut 1.0%
  • Dripping 0.7%
  • Macadamia Oil 0.7%
  • Chicken Fat 0.3%
  • Hemp Oil 0.3%
  • Palm Oil 0.3%
  • Rice Bran 0.3%
  • Safflower Oil 0.3%

Temperature?

A lot of people were quick to point out that they are very careful to choose their oil/ fat carefully depending on temperature (for instance, saying that they only use olive oil at low temperatures or over salads, and use coconut oil for cooking at higher temperatures)

• Organic cold pressed Coconut high temps and anything lower than 350 I use olive oil
• Coconut, ghee, bacon fat, and at low temps (like my oven roasted tomatoes) I use flavoured olive oil.
• Don't cook with olive oil at high temps!!
• Coconut oil for cooking olive oil for salads
• Don't use anything that is liquid at room temperature as when it gets heated to a certain temperature they turn into hydrogenated fat… Use anything that is solid at took temperature as the compounds are more stable… Use raw organic coconut oil or organic butter
• Coconut oil and ghee depending on what im cooking Olive Oil for salads.
• Is grape seed oil acceptable? I like it as an alternative for high temps.

Experimentation

There were also a lot of you who have a favourite oil, but expressed an interest in trying a new oil, or even rendering your own:

• I'm going to try ghee
• I might try some goose fat
• Heard of walnut but haven't tried it yet.
• I do want to try making ghee.

Quality

Quality is clearly a high priority to everyone, pretty much everyone pointed out they use grass-fed butter, or Extra Virgin Olive Oil. There were a lot of comments like this one:

• All either organic or from pastured/free range animals.

Taste

A lot of people just hate the taste of coconut oil too… it’s definitely worth trying it in different dishes, and also trying other brands. Whilst refined coconut oils don't have the coconutty taste – they are refined oils, so not ideal…

• My partner dislikes coconut flavor. Does it taste very coconutty?
• Is there a coconut oil that doesn't have a strong flavour or does all coconut oil make everything you're cooking coconut flavoured …. ?
• I don't like coconut but coconut oil doesn't really taste of it. I don't mind chicken fish or eggs with coconut oil but not red meat

So over to you, which fats and oils do you use – and in what situation?