OK, I’ve eaten pork belly in restaurants but never cooked it. I was just wandering through my Asian market, disappointed by the dearth of vegetables (who knew there’s a weekly cycle? They said to come back on Friday) Anyway, I found myself looking at a lovely piece of pork belly at what seemed like a great price (certainly compared to the pork belly I’ve eaten in fine dining restaurants).
So how should I fix my first home-cooked piece of pork belly???
Slow braise & crisp up at the end.
I have used this recipe with great success. I actually had some Pork Belly Banh Mi sandwiches last Saturday using pork belly that I braised, cooled and froze in a food saver bag. I thawed and crisped it in a frying pan and then gave it a quick pass under the broiler, quality grub!
Good luck!
I prepare quite a lot of pork belly and my prep is to boil it in seasoned water with onion,smashed garlic,star anise,dried orange or tangerine skins,soy,fish sauce ,salt,brown sugar, crushed white pepper corns and a dash of 5 spice powder.
Boil on low for 2 hours,drain and leave uncovered in the fridge overnight.
broil in a convection oven or “Turbo” spritzing with some of the boil water occasionally to achieve a crispy skin,slice and serve in a steamed rice buns with a Hoisin /Lingham’s/scallions and cilantro sauce.
Ditto. If you have a sous vide circulator, that’s a great way to do the braising step - it makes it very tender and the skin gets fully softened and rendered so that it crisps beautifully. Otherwise I like to do it in a VERY low (180-200F) oven overnight. Take it out in the morning and put it in the fridge to set up, then slice and broil or pan fry (or deep fry!) at dinnertime. Yum.
Thank you all for your help. I think I will do this over the weekend and I’ll report back!
It’s a standard roast in this house - better than leg or shoulder to my mind.
Can tricky to roast as a flat piece and, more often than not, we’d roll it before cooking. It’s not the cooking of the actual meat that’s an issue, it’s getting the crackling. We cook at 180C, then turn the heat up for a few minutes to crisp the skin.
i think you mean “simmer”? boil and low heat are mutually exclusive. sorry to be pedantic, just trying to help the op.
op: preheat oven to 250. slice thick rounds of onions and layer those in the bottom of a casserole dish. scatter minced ginger and garlic. place pork belly on top. pour boiling water in dish, not quite touching meat. cover dish with foil and bake till meat is tender. 3-5 hours. uncover and run meat under broiler to crisp. the drippings and onions make a great confit as an accompaniment.
if you want a project that takes a few days look up michael ruhlman’s confit of pork belly.
This popped up on my FB feed last week.
