I’ve neglected this blog for too many months. I’m going to get back into it.
Not always with recipes, sometimes just with pictures.
I’ll try to not be boring.
So this, from Saturday’s nights dinner at Shelley-belly’s Underground, is Jupina-glazed pork belly. The pictures are not great, I hadn’t planned on blogging this… but it tasted awesome.
Totally inspired by the Boston restaurant Puritan & Company’s awesome Moxie lamb breast (we were there in December and the lamb dish lives on in my memory). I loved that they used a fun local product in their dish and wanted to do the same. Jupina (say hoo-pee-nya) is a Cuban soft drink. Pineapple in flavour, sugar and probably chemical in make-up and much loved by the Miami community. I used this, with a little hit of chilli, to make my glaze. Actually, my jelly.
I braised the belly, pressed it, portioned it, warmed it in the oven and then, seconds before serving, I draped a slice of the jelly over the belly and zapped it under a fiery-hot grill. And it was perfect. The final dish was exactly as I had hoped it would be.
Served on a purée of roast beets and a side of crushed peas – the little dots of pea purée you see in the photo are simply to tie the main dish and the side dish together. Also, on this plate I’ve added a little dash of green with some fresh fennel fronds but in the finished product, the one we served to our guests, I used spicy mustard cress and topped the belly with shards of crispy pork crackling.
Here are a few of the other dishes we loved from Saturday night…
Bone marrow with toasted sour dough bread and parsley and caper salad.
Confit tomatoes.
Lime soufflé with fresh mango coulis and green chilli sugar.
All in all, a pretty good night – we’re looking forward to the next one.
And if you find yourself in Boston in the near future, be sure to check-out Puritan & Company, you’ll thank me, they’re doing good things.
Shelley-belly Blogs 
It was actually one of the best food nights of my life.
The bone marrow was a hit (un-shamefully washed away with a good Pommard 1er Cru) so delicious and so delicate. It’s taste gently danced forever in my mouth.
Having said that, the king of the night was the pork belly, melting in my mouth with a texture soft to feel, hard to describe, so gentle that we couldn’t ever guess that was pork.
There were several more delicacies to eat that are not in the photos but equally spectacular, yes it was a great night and, for me, one of the best ever ! I left with the hope to be called again.
Thank you Shelley and Paul
Stefano, you are too kind. You make me blush.
Looks absolutely scrumptious.
Thank you.
Shelley-belly it looks like you triumphed once again. Wish I was there!
Me too! Can’t wait to see you.
It looks like another amazing meal. My mouth is watering at the pictures. Not fair!
Thank you, join us sometime, won’t you?
WOW! I LOVE your pork belly, Shelly Belly! Another incredible dinner had by all.
It was a fun night Eleanor. And the chilli threads from your friends at http://www.earthy.com were a real hit.
Oh my Gosh – I know that you will be in South Africa soon for a short visit – I am very available to attend a dinner here – the glaze on the pork looks so clean and fresh – so nice to see such a clear glaze and the lime soufflé just perfect – for you I will break my diet !
Me too me too!!! Looks amazing!!! Well done! xxx Sarah
You are one of the most un-boring people I know, you should actually try and challenge yourself to be more boring. I don’t think you could do.
Next week is it?
x
Your presentation is so lovely! The colour and texture of that roasted beet puree made my heart stop.
I felt the same way about your brown sugar bbq pork ribs (which I would love to come and sample sometime – there’s no info on your blog about where your cooking happens though. If you’d prefer to keep it private would you mind emailing it to me? shelley.belly@att.net)
As for the beets, so easy, they just need a bit of patience and elbow grease – roast, peel, food mill, sweat out some of the liquid, season, smoosh though a drum sieve.
In Southern Ontario, Canada so quite a hike from where you are! Thanks a lot. 🙂
Wow! I figured you put in quite a bit of work on them because it’s such a smooth, bright puree.
I read a lot of interesting posts here. Probably you spend a lot of
time writing, i know how to save you a lot of time, there is an online tool that creates high quality, google friendly articles in minutes,
just type in google – laranitas free content source