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Braised Pork Belly with stuffed Quail

Side dish: Carrot Puree and Baby Marrow ribbons.

Ingredients:

Method:

  1. Quail stuffing:
    1. Add the olive oil and butter into a pan and slowly heat.
    2. Add the onions and garlic and sweat for a 2 minutes, regulating the temperature as you go to make sure you don’t discolour the onions.
    3. Add the bacon and the mushrooms and continue frying for 4 minutes.
    4. Next add the breadcrumbs, the pine nuts, lemon zest, parsley and tarragon.
    5. Set aside to cool.
  2. Stuffing the quails:
    1. Make sure the quails are nice and dry.
    2. Then make a ball with the stuffing and place inside the cavity of the quail.
    3. Close the cavity with two toothpicks to prevent the stuffing from oozing out.
    4. Brush the birds with the butter and season with salt and pepper.
    5. Place them into an oven preheated to 200 degrees Celsius for 25 minutes.
    6. After 25 minutes remove from the oven and remove the quails from the pan.
    7. Now deglaze the pan with the sweet wine, add the grapes and the chicken stock and reduce down to a sticky consistency. Reserve the sauce until later.
  3. Pork Belly:
    1. Cut slits into the rind of the pork belly and rub in the sea salt.
    2. Drizzle with olive oil and place in an oven preheated to 140 degrees celcius for 4 hours.
      Side dish: Carrot Puree and Baby Marrow ribbons.
  4. Carrot puree
    1. Put the carrots into a pot together with water and salt.
    2. Cook until the carrots is soft, about 15 minutes.
    3. After 15 minutes drain the carrots properly and add them back into a pot, together with the cream,
    4. butter, thyme, tarragon, star anise, honey and salt.
    5. Cook over medium heat until the cream starts to thicken.
    6. Remove from the pot and put the mixture into a food processor. Process the carrots until smooth. Remove the carrot puree and keep it warm.
  5. Baby marrow
    1. Use a peeler and peel ribbons off the baby marrow.
    2. Heat olive oil in a pan with the garlic, toss the baby marrow ribbons through the hot oil and season with salt, keep aside.