Pork Belly Confit Steak

I had a great time preparing and cooking the pork confit the week before.  It was a long drawn out process, but definitely worth it in the end.  

When I order pork belly at restaurants, it seems like it is never enough and it is always sliced pretty thinly.  So I wanted to prepare a "healthy" portion of pork belly and decided to serve it as a steak.  When I prepared the pork belly for the confit process, I had cut them in 4 inch squares.  

When I got home from work that evening, I took the pork belly out of the fridge and let it get to room temperature so I can scrape it out of the lard that it is sitting in.  

As I did this, I realized I needed a starch on my plate.  I had a gold potato and a sweet potato sitting on the counter. I cut those up into little dices so it cooks quicker, and steamed it.  I went ahead and heated some milk and butter and infused it with garlic and parsley and just let it steep in the milk.  I put the steamed potatoes through a potato ricer and whipped it with the milk.  

As the lard gets to room temperature, it makes it easy to get the pork belly out of it.  Keep in mind that the pork belly is very fragile and can be easily torn apart if not taken out of the lard carefully.  I scored the fat and let it render fat side down in a hot pan for a little while until it turned a golden brown and started to crisp.  I finished it off in the oven.  

For the sauce, I poured out some of the fat in the pan and sauteed some onion and garlic and deglazed it with some red wine and reduced it.  

To finish off the plate, I prepared some garlic confit to top it all off.