Wet Polenta with pork belly

I met up with a good chef friend of mine Bryn Lewis yesterday, we went on a little food odyssey around Gisborne collecting tasty products and fresh produce.Bryn is also a wine maker at Hi hi winery which is in Ormond, Gisborne. So I had the chance to sample their wide verity of old and new world wines straight from the barrel. The boys have done a fantastic job so keep your eyes out for the wine.

The following dish is the end result of our days gathering and a fairly large amount of wine. We wanted an Italian style dinner that we could all sit around and drink wine with. Perfect.

A fun way to serve and eat food this one...




































Wet Polenta with Pork Belly:
Pork belly
Chorizo sausage
Cacciatori hot sausage
Chicken stock
Wine
Bay leaves
Onion garlic
Olives
Basil
Oregano
Parsley
Eggplant
Roasted capsicum
Kamokamo
Portobello mushrooms
Parmesan

Method:
Gently simmer the pork belly in chicken stock, water, wine, onions and garlic for 2hrs until tender. Cool and cut into cubes.

Cut the veg into chunks and roast until soft and coloured.

Cut the sausages into chunks and grill with the pork belly, season.

Make the polenta by combining the chicken stock with some of the pork’s cooking liquor; we added raw corn kernels at this stage then rained in the polenta while stirring continuously. When cooked add a large knob of butter and plenty of grated Parmesan.

Spread the polenta out on a clean table and sprinkle over the pork cubes, sausage, roasted veg, herbs, olive oil and extra Parmesan.

Grab some plates and using a fish slice serve straight from the table. As the polenta cools it will start to set and is equally nice like that.

The wine best matched proved to be the Hi hi Merlot.