Crisp belly of pork with lentils and Granny Smith apple purée

Mark Hix says: Anthony's first book, Today's Special (published by Quadrille, £20) has some beautiful pictures from our own Jason Lowe and has lots of clever dishes using less common cuts of fish and meat. I used his rabbit recipe a while back and it worked a treat using every single bit of the rabbit. You could work your way through this book and survive the credit crunch with money to spare.

"I favour apples with a high acidity, like Granny Smiths," says Anthony, "to cut through the fattiness of the pork belly. If you can't get apples that are sufficiently acidic, you can always add a little lemon juice."

1 pork belly, about 1.5kg
2 litres brine (made the day before by boiling 200g sugar, 200g salt, 2 juniper berries, 1 bayleaf and 10 white peppercorns in 2 litres water, then simmmering for 10 minutes and allowing to cool)
2 heads of garlic
2 sprigs of thyme
Olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the lentils

25g butter
2 carrots, diced
2 celery stalks, strings removed and diced
2 onions, peeled and diced
300g Puy lentils

For the Granny Smith apple purée

4 Granny Smith apples
25g butter

The day before, using a craft knife, slash the pork rind in 1cm strips, making sure that you do not penetrate the meat. Place in the cooled brine for one day. This process not only flavours the meat, but also helps release water from the fat and rind, creating a base for fantastic crispy crackling.

Next day, take the pork from the brine, place in a pan of cold water, bring to the boil, lift out the pork and leave to cool slightly. Pre-heat the oven to 160C/gas 3.

Place the garlic and thyme on the base of a roasting tray, put the pork on top, rind side up, and liberally drizzle with olive oil and salt. Pour 2cm of water into the tray, put in the pre-heated oven and roast for 1–2 hours, topping up with water now and again just to stop it drying out. When cooked, take from the oven and leave to cool down.

Pour off all the juices and reserve. Place a tray or board on top of the pork and apply 3–4 plates to press and reshape the pork in order to obtain a nice flat appearance (otherwise it develops an odd shape during cooking and cooling).

To cook the lentils, melt the butter in a large heavy-based pan and lightly sweat the diced vegetables in it. Add the lentils and reserved juices from the pork. Top up with water to cover plus 2.5cm, bring to the boil and simmer until the lentils are cooked (about 30 minutes).

To make the Granny Smith apple purée, peel, core and chop the apples. Put in a stainless-steel pan with the butter, cover and cook over a low heat until soft (about 10–15 minutes). Crush or blend to a paste. Serve the pork carved thickly, with the purée and lentils.