Featuring Brenda Immerschmitt’s "Pork Belly Roast with Potato and Spinach Croquettes"

Born in Dublin, Ireland, I immigrated to Australia in 1992 and currently live in Putney, Sydney with my husband Peter and my son Sam. My fondest memories of cooking are as a young child watching my mother and Italian grandmother in the kitchen preparing beautiful food for our family. I always enjoy experimenting with new dishes. I believe everybody can cook and it gives me great pleasure to see people thoroughly enjoy the food I have prepared for them.

I am inspired by Jamie Oliver as I appreciate how he makes everything so quick and easy to prepare and an enjoyable cook book is “The Slow Cooker”. The classic recipe “Lamb Shanks” cooked in a slow cooker is one I often cook. My regular comfort meal is roast lamb. An essential item in my kitchen is silver foil as I use it all the time especially for lining my roasting tins. My most popular dish would have to be Chili Mussels in Napolitana sauce. My favourite kitchen tool is definitely my meat thermometer and newly discovered ingredients are honey soy and oyster sauce. In my opinion every home kitchen should have garlic and mustard.

I prefer the simplicity of the basic Thai Restaurant where you can relax and totally enjoy the freshly made foods using the best of quality ingredients. There is a trend towards making Thai Restaurants stylish. My cooking tip: don’t be too serious in the kitchen, enjoy the whole ambiance of cooking and preparing meals for those you love and definitely clean as you go.

I am renowned for being distracted from my tasks in the kitchen as I constantly leave food on the stove with the need to be reminded by my husband and son that I am actually “the chef” and things are happening.

Pork Belly Roast with Potato and Spinach Croquettes

Ingredients serve 8

1.8 kg pork belly

1.5 kg potato peeled and quartered

450 g spinach

1 tbsp salt

1 tsp black pepper

3 tbls plain flour

2 cups breadcrumbs

4 eggs

Method

Preheat oven to 200º. Rinse off meat under cold running water, pat dry ensuring the skin is totally dry devoid of water. Rub cooking salt into the rind adding a few bay leaves placed between the cracks of the skin. Place pork belly on a wire in a deep roasting tray. Insert tray into pre heated oven for 20 min. Reduce heat to 170º for 1.5 hrs. Increase heat to 200º for the last ten min of cooking.

Bring potatoes to the boil in a pot of salted water, simmer for approx. 20 min or until the potatoes are tender but firm, drain well, once cooled grate the potatoes into a large bowl. Wash spinach and place while still wet in a saucepan. Cover and cook over a low heat until tender while stirring occasionally. Drain and finely chop, add a tsp salt. Place potato and spinach in a large bowl, season with salt and black pepper to taste. Using a floured surface roll the potato mixture into sausage shapes about 5cm long approx 65g. Coat each croquette evenly in flour, dip into beaten egg mix and coat in breadcrumbs.

Heat oil to 180ºC and deep fry croquettes in batches for approx 3 minutes, drain well. Keep warm in oven. Remove pork roast from oven and allow 15 min. resting before cutting and serving. Serve with steamed vegetables, spinach croquette and gravy, season with salt and pepper to taste.

Note: Ensure your hands are floured before preparing the potato croquettes to avoid food sticking to your fingers.