Perfect Luncheon Meat

After starting the WAPF diet I stopped buying luncheon meat at the supermarket and realised that I seriously miss it with the sourdough bread for occasional sandwich and eventually came up with a few solutions that serve me really well. I usually have boiled beef heart, or boiled beef tongue, or cooked pork belly. While boiled heart and tongue do not require any receipt, you just boil them with salt, bay leaves, black peppers, carrot, onion and celery until ready, the cooked pork belly is a different story and requires a bit more preparation and so I decided to share it here.

Ingredients:

For seasoning:
1-1.5 kg grass fed organic pork belly off the bone
coarse sea salt (to taste)
crushed black pepper (to taste)
2-3 gloves of organic garlic
fresh or dried organic thyme (to taste)
1-2 cm organic ginger root
1 medium organic onion
2 spring organic onions (optional)
1/2 organic sweet pepper of any color (optional)
2 tsp raw organic honey

For actual cooking:
2-3 organic bay leaves
1 medium organic carrot
1/2 organic onion
1 organic celery stick
6-10 black peppercorns

string for tying up
large pot

First you need to season the pork belly. Wash it properly and pat dry with the kitchen towels, set aside. Prepare your seasoning: cut up garlic, onion, sweet peppers, spring onion if using to your liking. I usually cut it up finely. Clean the ginger root and grate it or cut it up very finely. Mix everything in a bawl together with the honey, add salt and crushed black pepper to taste, then add some thyme. Mix everything roughly and then season your meat in a large zipper bag or in a large stainless steel bowl. Cover the meat properly, rub it with the seasoning for a minute or 2 and then leave overningt on the counter to season.

In the morning take the meat out, put it into the cutting board and roll it up as tightly as you can but not too tight and secure with the string, tight it around a few times.

Put your roll into the pan and cover with water. At the boiling point remove scum and add bay leaves, medium carrot, peeled and cut in 3, half of the peeled onion, 1 celery stick cut in 4 and peppercorns. Cover it with the lid and let it simmer for 1,5, then check with a knife, if it is switch it off. If the meat is still a bit hard give another 30 minutes.

When your meat is ready take it out of the pan and put it in a large bowl or a small roasting tin, wherever it fits, put a cutting board on top, press on it so it becomes a bit flattened and then place something heavy on top.

I usually use a couple of heavy cooking books.

Let it stay under the press until it cools down, then transfer to a container, close the lid and place into the fridge. After a couple of hours in the fridge, I usually put it overnight, it is ready. It is perfect in a slice of home made sourdough bread with some mustard.