Crispy Pork Belly
Adapted from Chef Mike Portley
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 2 hours + 30 minutes + overnight drying
Serves: 4-6 people as part of a banquet
This recipe is best made over 2 days
Slow cooked pork belly & crackling
- 1.1kg/2.4 lbs pork belly, boneless, skin on
- 18g/0.6ozs fine salt
Pork sauce
- 100g/3.5ozs Italian style chilli paste like Bippi (mild or hot, I recommend a blend of the two)
- 80g/2.8ozs brown sugar
- 40g/1.4ozs oyster sauce
To Assemble
- 2 x baby cos heads, washed, dried
- 1/2 bunch Thai basil
- 1/2 bunch Vietnamese mint
- 1/2 bunch coriander
- 2 x green shallots, sliced finely
- 100g/3.5ozs roasted salted peanut, chopped finely ("kibbled")
-
100g/3.5ozs good aioli or kewpie mayo (optional)
-
60ml/2flozs fish sauce
- 1/2 cup/75g/2.6ozs rice flour
Step 1 - Start this recipes 2 days ahead. Using a sharp knife, lightly score the skin on your pork belly in a diamond pattern around 2mm/0.08inches apart. Rub the salt firmly into the skin of the pork belly and refrigerate or leave covered at room temperature for up to 2 hours for the salt to penetrate the skin. Wipe off any excess salt and moisture with paper towels.
Step 2 - Place a steamer basket above a large pot of water. Steam the pork on medium heat for 2 hours. Thermomix: 2 hours/Varoma/speed #1. The pork should be tender, but not falling apart. Wipe the skin dry again and place in the refrigerator to completely cool.
Step 3 - Once the pork is cool, remove the skin by running a sharp knife all the way around the edge of the skin. Use a table spoon with the cup side up and run the spoon under the skin to separate it from the belly, leaving all the fat intact on the belly. Scrape any excess fat off the skin and discard the fat. Dry the skin out in a dehydrator, or in the oven on a low temp (55-60C/131-140F degrees) overnight or for 8 hours. In a pinch, you can dry it as best you can in the fridge for 1-2 days.
Step 4 - Slice the dried skin into smaller pieces to deep fry. Heat your oil to 190C/374F and fry the skin, skin side down for 4-5 minutes, fully submerged, until puffy and fully dried. Drain well of excess oil and roughly cut up, I find scissors works well here.
Step 5 - Mix ingredients for pork sauce together into a bowl and place the fish sauce in one bowl and the rice flour in another. Trim the pork belly into a rectangular shape, then cut rectangles about 1cm/0.4inch thick (about 50g/1.7ozs pieces is good). Heat fryer oil to 175C/347F. Toss pork belly pieces through the fish sauce, drain slightly, then toss through rice flour to coat. Fry your pork belly pieces in batches until deep golden around 3 minutes or so on each side. Drain on paper towels.
Step 6 - Arrange your lettuce cups. Put your largest and firmest leaves of cos underneath with softer inner leaves on top. Pipe in some aioli and arrange a generous amount of your herb mix on top. Dip the pork slices into the pork sauce and place 1 piece of pork belly per cup. Top with chopped up crackling and peanuts.
I woke up very early this morning in a panic. I was going to the Central Coast for a little getaway with Monica because she is moving Italy in a month's time and although I was super busy, I wanted to take the time to spend with her. But this truncated week meant that I had half a day to make sure that I had all of my blog posts lined up. I had three to finish off and half a day was simply not enough time. I rushed downstairs while Mr NQN was still asleep upstairs and I made a cup of tea and started a new recipe. It had 4 hours in the slow cooker and that didn't leave me a lot of time to write it up. I had already tested it but this was going to be the beauty shot so everything had to look perfect.
I seared the meat and then let it to cook and then sat on my computer for hours busily writing. A lot of work goes into each blog post especially recipe posts so a few hours later Mr NQN woke from his slumber. I reminded him that I had an event that night to go to and then he said, "Isn't that tomorrow night?".
And you know that feeling, not the one where you eat something delicious and your brain does a happy synapse firing jackpot leap? My brain was doing another thing, that feeling where you realised that you actually didn't realise what day it was and the calendar in your mind flips from day to day and hour to hour! That it was an actual day before and I had an extra day. Which was a relief to me, but I wish I had realised it earlier.
So tell me Dear Reader, do you ever get the day wrong? Does you ever get that "jackpot" feeling when you eat something super tasty?