#winter warmer

On a cold day, this beautifully crispy, generously fatty and deliciously flavourful Honey and Herb Roast Pork Belly makes a splendid lunch! It's a cheap cut of meat, too! Happy Thursday!

Ingredients (serves 3):

1 onion

800 grams/1.75 pork belly

1 large garlic clove, minced

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

1 teaspoon fleur de sel or sea salt flakes

1/2 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 cup water

1 heaped tablespoon pure honey

Preheat oven to 200°C/395°F.

Peel onion and cut it into thin slices. Scatter onion slices at the bottom of a roasting tin.

Using a sharp knife, remove the thick pig skin from the pork belly, so you are left with a layer of fat. With the knife, score the fat in a criss-cross manner.

Combine minced garlic, dried thyme and oregano, fleur de sel and black pepper in a small bowl. Stir in olive oil until well-blended. Generously rub oil and herb mixture all over the pork belly.

Sit pork belly, fat-side up, onto the onion slices, and pour water at the bottom of the tin.

Place roasting tin into the hot oven, and roast, at 200°C/395°F, for 30 to 35 minutes, until golden brown on top.

Generously brush pork belly all over with honey, and return to the hot oven.

Roast, at 200°C/395°F, for another 10 minutes.

Today I will share a special recipe. It is a traditional recipe from an area in the South of Albania, Gjirokastra. Meatballs’ Soup is very famous and more than two centuries old. It is known as the preferred soup of Ali Pasha Tepelena, an Albanian senior military commander and vizier during the Ottoman Empire period. Some legends say this soup was created in purpose for his taste. That’s why its…