Stegt flæsk med persillesovs (crispy pork with parsley sauce)
55 min · 23 g protein · 507 cals / serving
Denmark's national dish: slices of pork belly fried until they shatter, with boiled potatoes and a thick white sauce so full of parsley it turns green. Here the crisp pork is a smaller, oven-crisped share beside more potatoes, the sauce is made on skim milk thickened with cornflour, and pickled beetroot cuts through it all, as it does on any Danish table.
Ingredients
- 11 oz pork belly, sliced 1 cm (1/2 inch) thick, rind removed
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 1/4 lb potato, peeled
Parsley sauce
- 3 tbsp cornstarch, cornflour
- 2 1/2 cups skim milk
- 1/2 tsp salt
- a pinch white pepper
- a pinch nutmeg
- 1 large bunch fresh parsley, curly, finely chopped
- 1 tsp butter
To serve
- 1 2/3 cups sliced pickled beetroot, drained
Steps
- Heat the oven to 400°F. Lay the pork slices on a rack over a roasting tray, sprinkle with salt and roast for 30–35 minutes, turning once, until deep golden and crisp right through. Pour off the fat as it collects.
- Meanwhile boil the potatoes in salted water for about 20 minutes until tender, then drain.
- Whisk the cornflour into 100 ml (scant 1/2 cup) of the cold milk. Bring the rest of the milk to a simmer in a saucepan, whisk in the cornflour mixture and keep whisking over medium heat for 2–3 minutes until thick and smooth. Season with salt, white pepper and nutmeg.
- Take the sauce off the heat and stir in all the parsley and the butter; it should be thick with green.
- Serve the crisp pork with the potatoes, plenty of parsley sauce poured over them, and pickled beetroot on the side.
Good to know
Frying pan instead of the oven?
The classic way works too: fry the slices in a dry pan over medium heat for 10–12 minutes a side, pouring off the fat as it renders. The oven needs less watching and the rack lets more fat drip away.
How much pork do Danes usually eat?
Often two to three times this, with a sauce made on butter and whole milk. This version keeps the crackling and the parsley sauce and gives the potatoes and beetroot a bigger share of the plate.
Salted or fresh pork belly?
Either. Lightly salted (rimmet) belly is common and seasons itself, so skip the salt on the slices if you use it.
Per
- Calories
- 102
- Protein
- (18%)
- 5 g
- Fat
- (29%)
- 3 g
- Carbohydrates
- (52%)
- 14 g
- of which sugar
- 4 g
- Fiber
- 1 g
- Sodium
- 196 mg
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Computed from the ingredients with our published formula, not yet kitchen-tested. How
As written, 2028 kcal goes into the pot and 2257 g of ingredients comes out as about 1990 g of food: 102 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water and energy density is the score's biggest lever, so the dish is scored as cooked, not as an average of its parts. Every ingredient links to its food page, with the same data and score. The label's percentages are each macronutrient's share of the calories. The full formula.