Occasionally you win some, you lose some when it comes to making dinner. I had some leftover pork belly in my freezer (from making this pate) that I was so excited to use up! I considered preparing the pork belly the same way that I did last time but thought I’d do it up a bit differently.
I found this recipe for pork belly and thought it sounded great. One of my problems with the pork belly that I made last time was that there was no crispy goodness. This recipe promised a lot of crispy goodness so I was all over that.
There was a ton of preparation involved or many days of soaking or anything, which was a plus. I ended up rubbing the spices on the belly the night before and allowed it to sit in the fridge overnight before preparing it. Easy enough.
The success of this dish is really all in your cooking technique, which clearly I did not have. First you boil the belly to get the cooking started and then fry it up on all sides to finish the cooking and crisp it up without suffering any third degree burns from flying oil. Sounds easy enough. Based on visual clues I really thought the belly was going to turn out wonderfully. The colour was nice, it had shrunk down a fair bit and it looked ready to go.
Boy was I wrong. From what I could tell the belly was mostly cooked (there was one small spot that wasn’t) BUT the fact had really not rendered the way I’d hoped. I wanted that soft and silky fat but this fat was just… hard. Sure the skin/outer layer was nice and crispy but the fat was awful. The meaty part below it was fine but at that point I was too disappointed to continue. I ended up eating about 50% of the crispy part of for dinner which was wholly unsatisfying.
So I’m totally not blaming the recipe on this one and instead am blaming myself. I’d probably give this recipe another shot with a smaller piece of meat just to test it out.
Crispy Pork Belly Recipe
Ingredients:
1lb pork belly
1 tsp Spiced Ginger Powder
1 tsp Five Spice Powder
1/2 tsp white pepper
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp msg (optional)
Method:
Wash the meat under cold water.
Submerge the pork belly meat in a pot of water and boil for about 15 minutes on medium heat.
Remove the pork and place it in a colander to let it dry for about 15 minutes. You may take the extra step of patting the pork belly skin dry with a paper towel for extra crispy skin.
Stab the pork with a knife a few times and rub the spices and salt on the flesh only (not the skin). We recommend layering the spices in the following order: spiced ginger powder, 5 spice powder, white pepper, salt and optional msg.
Let it marinate for 1 hour, though over night is better for a deeper flavor.
In a dutch oven or a large cast iron pan, fill it with oil enough to cover the skin of the pork belly. Avoid using olive oil since it has a low smoking point. You can place the pork belly in pan while the oil is still cold to prevent splatter. CAUTION!!! the pork will splatter a lot, so it is better to use a dutch oven with a heavy lid or use a splatter screen to place over your frying pan.
Fry the skin side first for roughly 5 mins or until golden brown and crispy, turn it on the side and fry it only for a min or two, repeat on all sides (it is best not to fry it on the flesh side for too long as it will toughen the meat) Frying is a skill learned over time, so if the skin is burnt, you can scrape it off with a knife. No worries!
Let it rest until cool to the touch and cut into slices.
(Via Rasa Malaysia)
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
{new blog entry} Crispy Pork Belly http://goo.gl/fb/z92BL
This comment was originally posted on
NOTHING beat good pork belly. This is making me drool even though you weren’t completely satisfied. Definitely give it another shot…for me!?