What to do with red wine braised pork belly

[glennbech]

Hi,

Pork belly sells for just $3 a kilogram around christmas in Norway, so I tend to buy a lot a make all kinds of dishes from it. I recently made bacon; and in the process i vacuumed some pieces that I squared off with some dry cure.

Today I browned the pieces off in a cast iron pan and braised them fork tender in red wine. The stock is awesome, but the pieces of meat are still fatty, I had hoped for a complete render of the fat. Both me and the rest of the family are not fans of chunks of visible fat.

I preserved the pieces in the stock for now, and was actually thinking of pureeing the meat with some of the gelatinous stock to make some kind of patê. Would that work?

Other ideas, maybe how to use this as a starter for my upcoming new years eve dinner?

Here is an image pre-braising.

[Paul Bacino]

I might try..finishing the braise..in the oven..to render...your gel fat

[ChrisTaylor]

That. And then I'd park it in the fridge overnight and skim off the solidified fat in the morning.

[Blether]

You could pick out the fat bits, crisp them up by frying and plate separately.

[glennbech]

I ended up making my own twist on a Rilette, from Charcuterie. I was half way there with the braised pork belly. Rilettes are discussed in another thread on this forum

Instead of the traditional fat on top, I lined a ramekin with some of my home made bacon, put the shredded meat into it with some grilled leeks and rasins. Im going to give the whole thing a good sear with my large blowtorch and try this as a starter, - maybe on toast with some pickles...

Ill post pics of the result later