Earl Cooks Pork Belly & Pan Roasted Fennel Bulb

It's the last day of the month so I thought I would try some firsts. I found Fully Cooked Pork Belly at Trader Joe's, and all I have to do is crisp it up.

I also found some fennel bulbs that had been mostly trimmed. We had tried Pork Belly on a sandwich and been totally unimpressed and we have had fennel seeds as a spice, but never tried the bulbs. It seemed like this would be a good way to gently step into the pork belly arena without buying a  HUGE chunk of pork, and there was virtually no waste on the fennel bulb.  

To that I added a perfectly ripe avocado and some locally grown grape tomatoes.  I did add a bit of water to steam the fennel. If you have never tried it, it is roughly the same texture as celery with a mild anise or licorice taste. It is lovely raw or pan roasted.

Where does pork belly come from...the same place as bacon, so it must be good, right? It reminded us of a pork chop, because it is not cured or smoked like bacon, but it was very tender and tasty. The only thing I did to it was season it with a bit of salt and pepper. It did take awhile to get it crisp and brown, but the rendered fat made the fennel bulb perfect.

The fennel bulb simply needed to be cut into eighths and roasted in the rendered pork fat with some water to steam it tender. Salt Pepper and butter finished it off nicely