The Irish late night spice bag, built properly and scaled for a crowd. Pork belly braised until it gives, chicken wings fried hard, chips and capsicum out of the oven, all of it tumbled together with the seasoning and tipped into paper bags. No plates, no washing up, and everyone eats standing.
4 hours, most of it unattended. Serves 6 to 8.
Braised pork belly
- 1.5kg pork belly, cut into slices
- 75ml rice wine vinegar
- 75ml dark soy sauce
- 75ml honey
- 1 thumb fresh ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
- 3 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
- 2 star anise
- 2 cinnamon sticks
Chicken wings
- 1.5kg chicken wings
- 1 lemon
- 2 star anise
- 100g plain flour, for dusting
- Salt
- Sunflower oil, for deep frying
Crispy chicken strips or nuggets in an air fryer work if you would rather not deep fry.
Chips
- 1.5kg Kestrel or other floury potatoes, skin on, cut into thin wedges
- 3 red capsicums, sliced
- Salt
- Sunflower oil
Frozen chips and an air fryer work here too.
To finish
- 2 tbsp Plateit Salt n' Pepper 'Spice Bag' Seasoning
- Japanese curry sauce, to serve
- 4 red chillies, finely sliced
Method
- Pork first. Belly pieces into a large pot, covered with the soy, honey and rice wine vinegar. Leave to marinate an hour.
- Cover with water, bring to the boil, then drop to a simmer and add the ginger, garlic, star anise and cinnamon. Simmer gently 90 minutes to 2 hours, until the pork is soft.
- Lift the pork into a tray. Strain the liquor into a clean pan and reduce hard until thick and syrupy. Drizzle it over the meat and set aside.
- Oven to 200C. Boil the potato wedges in salted water 8 to 10 minutes until they begin to soften. Drain in a colander and leave to steam 10 minutes.
- Tumble the chips into a large roasting tin, uncrowded, and coat generously with sunflower oil. Roast an hour, turning every twenty minutes. Add the capsicum for the last twenty.
- Meanwhile, bring another pot of water to the boil. Peel and juice the lemon into it, add the star anise and more salt.
- Rolling boil 5 minutes, then the wings in. Skim the fat that rises and simmer 5 minutes more.
- Lift the wings out onto kitchen paper and cool 20 minutes.
- Sunflower oil into a wok, saucepan or deep fryer, heated to 180C.
- Season the flour hard with salt and pepper and dust the wings through it. Deep fry in batches, 5 minutes each, then drain and keep warm.
- Chips and capsicum out of the oven, chicken into the same tray, mixed through, covered with foil and kept warm.
- Grill on the highest setting. Blast the pork slices until they char, turning, then slice into mouth-sized pieces.
- Pork into the tray with 2 tbsp of the Plateit Salt n' Pepper 'Spice Bag' Seasoning. Mix thoroughly, then spoon into paper bags.
- Sliced red chilli into each bag. Curry sauce on the side. Cold beer.
Tip: Season in the tray, not the bag. Tossing is what gets it on every surface.
