I miss Asia.

I love being more home, but not traveling makes me miss all the places I’ve spent so much of my time….and all the beautiful food of course 😊

So pork belly! I love all the different versions to be honest, but a good crispy rind and lots of flavor is a must. So this is my can’t-go-wrong awesome pork belly recipe.

 

1.5kg Pork belly, make sure that it’s fresh and that the skin hasn’t gone dry. I get the butcher to score the skin for me, but if you need to do it yourself, use a carpet knife to ensure you don’t cut down into the meat. Always store your meat skin side down in the fridge.

Dry Rub:

• 2tbs Chinese five-spice powder
• 4tbs sea salt (I use my Himalayan pink salt)
• 2ts ground white pepper
• 1tbs sugar

Marinade:

• ½ cup light soy sauce
• ½ cup hoi sin sauce
• ¼ cup rice vinegar
• ¼ cup brown sugar

 

Day before serving:

Take the meat out and make sure you are happy with the scoring, give it a rise and pat dry. Mix together your dry rub, give the sugar a short run in a mixer or give it a good pound in a mortar. Put a 1-1.5 liter pot of very (sea) salt water on boil.

Put your meat on a rack over the sink with the skin side up, pour the boiling water over the skin evenly. Pat it dry and place it skin side down in your roasting pan, make sure the pan you use is a good size for your meat with 5cm space around the edges. This will make your cook tomorrow easier.

Using your hands, knead the dry rub into the meat, getting all the sides except the skin. Seal the pan off with some tin foil and put in the fridge for tomorrow.

 

On the day:

About 8 hours before serving, take the meat out of the fridge and let it rest on the bench. Cut up 3-4 garlic cloves and 3 cm ginger in rough cubes and place around the meat in the pan. Turn your oven to 170C, no fan. And boil about 1.5 liter salted water.

7 hours before serving:

Put the pan in the middle of the oven, use a meat thermometer in the thickest part of the meat if you have one. If not, don’t sweat it. Pour the boiling water around the meat, make sure you don’t pour it on the meat and wash away the rub. The water should cover all parts of the skin and be up the side to the meat part of the piece. After an hour the temp should be about 70C.

6 hours before serving:

Mix the marinade and take out your pork belly. Turn your oven to 90C, if you have it use the fan.

Now this part is kinda messy, but I put some plastic bags over my oven mittens and use my hands: Turn the pork around in the pan, skin side up. I place some tin foil under pork so it arches a bit in the middle. If it is concave or very uneven, it’s not going to crisp up evenly.  Pour the marinade into the water around the meat. Again, don’t pour it on the meat. The marinade should reach up the side of the meat, but not touch the skin. Place the pan on the middle rack again, it will be in the oven for 4 hours, reaching about 85C if you are using the meat thermometer. If you are, this is where you could facilitate for larger or smaller pieces of meat. If your meat only reached 50C the first hour, you can add an hour or two to your time here. If it reached 80C in the first hours you can easily use an hour less.

2 hours before serving:

Turn your oven up to 110C, your meat should be at about 85C at this point in time. Leave for 1 hour.

1 hour before serving:

Turn your oven up to 150C, your meat should be just over 90C now. Leave for 30 minutes.

(maybe you even wanna get some rice going and start making your veggies?)

30 minutes before serving:

Turn your oven up to 210C, you now want to hover near it. Make sure it doesn’t burn. You can have a sheet of tin foil handy to put over if any part of the top is getting burnt.

After 15 minutes turn on the grill function and watch CAREFULLY, popping up the last of the rind for about 5 minutes. Don’t watch the clock here though, watch your rind. Burnt rind does not taste nice, so get it out before it burns.

A very good tip is to use a hand burner if you have one, straight away after getting the pork out you can get the last stubborn rind to pop with swift movements with a hand burner.

Let the meat rest 10 minutes before cutting.

I serve my pork belly with steamed bok choi, white rice, Asian style cucumber salad and a hoi sin sauce.