Pork belly is the perfect winter meat - rich, succulent and utterly delicious. Here are five of my favourite ways to cook it: a classic with crunchy crackling, melt-in-the-mouth Japanese kakuni, a pork belly and apple pie, an easy ginger pork belly you can make in a rice cooker, and a special-occasion Chinese red-cooked pork.
1 - Classic Pork Belly with Crackling
We're starting with the classic pork belly with crunchy crackling. This has a clever but simple method that keeps the meat so soft and melting, renders the fat but then crisps up the crackling perfectly so that you can hear that crunch!
2 - Kakuni Japanese Pork Belly
I LOVE Kakuni! It is a Japanese simmered pork belly, slow cooked so you get the most delicious melt-in-the-mouth pork flavoured with ginger. You don't have to go to a Japanese restaurant for this - it's so simple to make at home too!
3 - Pork Belly and Apple Pie
This is a great dish especially if you have any leftover pork belly. Soft pieces of pork belly are combined with apples in a delicious pie. It's perfect to make on the weekend too!
4 - Ginger Pork Belly in The Rice Cooker
I'm a little obsessed with making things in a rice cooker and this ginger pork belly is a meal in one - there's even rice and boiled eggs in this Asian flavoured pork belly and all you have to do is add everything into the rice cooker and let it do its thing!
5 - Red Cooked Pork Belly
Red cooked pork belly is the name of a classic Chinese pork belly dish usually made for celebrations. It's a two-parter recipe that produces wonderfully soft pork belly with incredible depth of flavour. Perfect if you want something a bit special for dinner.
So tell me Dear Reader, do you like pork belly? Which dish would you like to eat right now?
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