Siu Yook (Roast Pork Belly)

[sheetz]

My grandmother says the same thing about rubbing the skin with soda to make it crisper.

[junehl]

Soda? Baking soda? Eh?

[sheetz]

Soda?  Baking soda?  Eh?

←

Yes, baking soda.

[Prawncrackers]

Yesterday was the first opportunity i've had to make Siu Yook since i fixed my oven. I am also happy to confirm that a little bicarb on the skin does help to make it a little lighter and crispier. Though unlike muichoi i left the soda on the skin throughout (after getting my mum to admit that this was the right way to do it!). My wife says that it was the best yet, i would have to agree with her as it was also a great piece of pork to begin with. Anyway here it is:

And a close-up of the left-overs:

[junehl]

noooo, prawncrackers, i'm on a diet...those pictures make me want to go and try and make some now

[Prawncrackers]

Mwahahaha!!! You know you shouldn't have opened this thread if you're on a diet

Now you have, you might as well try to make some for yourself. It's really quite sraightforward, i promise!

[muichoi]

That looks magnificent. No residual soda taste?

[Prawncrackers]

That looks magnificent. No residual soda taste?

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None at all, I gave it a good scraping at the end so there would have been virtually no soda left on it anyway. Besides i didn't use much, maybe just under a level teaspoon or so.

It would be interesting next time to see how effective it really is, maybe treat one half the pork with it and the other half without. Whose next in line to try it?

[hzrt8w]

This topic is becoming a "cook off" of siu yook. Marvelous!

[Tepee]

Tks, muichoi, for the heads-up. Yum yum yum, prawncracker, it looks so good! Next time I'm going to try will be in a fortnight's time. Can't wait! And make it again for gaw doong (winter solstice) reunion dinner. Can you feel my excitement?

[Dejah]

That looks magnificent. No residual soda taste?

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Whose next in line to try it?

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I'm itching to try, but can't get good belly until I get into the city again - probably during December sometime. The prices at local supermarkets are way out of range for the amount and quality I'd want.

All the preceeding slabs look incredible!

[milgwimper]

Oh this thhread is terrible for my hips. I was thinking of getting pork belly to make samgyup sal but I think now I need to get two! I will be trying this sometime this month. Thanks! Yumm Porky goodness! I will report here after it is done. If I am lucky it will happen this week.

[origamicrane]

hi all

after reading this thread and the pork belly thread in the cooking forum

decided to do a little experiment on how to get the best crackling.

So everyone agrees main prerequisites are dry skin, good fat layer, scored/pierced skin, salt and lots of heat.

But after reading the two threads I learnt that sometimes the reason we don’t get good crackling is that we haven’t denatured the skin enough as the tough skin prevents the blistering and crackling from forming.

So we can denature the skin by scoring, piercing, heating or using chemcials to attack it

So here I have two pieces of pork belly and I plan to divides these into 8 pieces and prep each one slightly differently to see which gives the best cracking results.

bellies

overview

so here's the fat layer on my pork bellies.

it’s a little hairy so used a blowtorch to just singe off the bristles .

then I scraped the skin with a sharp knife a few times to removes the burnt bristle ends

then I made 5mm score lines using a clean craft knife.

For sui yuk we have that spiked hammer thing but for some reason I can’t find mine anywhere so I just settled for score lines instead

I boiled 5 litres of water

put the pork bellies on a wire rack in the sink and slowly pour the boil water on to scald the skin. the skin contracts a lot when you do this.

lots of steam

I pat dry the skin with paper towels and then sprinkle 2 teaspoons of salt over the skin of each belly and rub it in

I cut the flesh in 1 inch sections down to the first fat layer

rubbed in my marinade of

1t salt

½ t sugar

1t five spice powder

½ t white pepper

5 clove minced garlic

1 T meen see/miso

1T hoisin sauce (but I didn’t have any in the house today)

so far this is a pretty typical siu yook preparation.

Now I divide the pork bellies into 8 pieces for my 8 tests

so the 8 tests are

Test 1. make more score lines both horizontal and vertical, this will be my control piece.

Test 2. use a blow torch and lick the surface of the skin with the flame until I see the skin dry and change colour but I don’t burn or blister the skin.

Test 3. brush lemon juice on. As it is acidic it should denature the skin.

Test 4. brush vinegar another acid to denature the skin.

Test 5. brush lye water (kan sui) or 50% potassium carbonate in solution. An alkali used to denature the skin and is the traditional Chinese method I believe.

Test 6. brush baking powder/ bicarbonate of soda – 50% sodium bicarbonate in solution. Probably the most common alkali in a western kitchen and you are more likely to have this then lye water.

Test 7. brush alcohol – 40% vodka – dehydrates and denatures proteins, although I read that I actually need a 70-80% solution to really do the job.

Test 8. brush kiwi juice - contains a protein digesting enzyme called Actinidain and i use this to tenderise tough cuts of beef.

so here are the 8 piece on a platter

these go back into the fridge uncovered for 24 hours to dry some more.

I will cook these tomorrow

stay tuned and fingers crossed I get some success.

oh and happy new year!!

Edited February 12, 2008 by origamicrane (log)

[heidih]

Wow- thanks for taking one for the team. Looking forward to your results.

[muichoi]

Me too-er, baking powder is different to baking soda!

[origamicrane]

Me too-er, baking powder is different to baking soda!

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yep didn't have any plain soda in the house

but baking powder has baking soda in it so hopefully this will work.

the one i am betting on to work well are the lye water and the lemon as they are the most alkaline and acid of the lot.

But the one i be most interested in seeing are the kiwi and the vodka because as far as i can tell no one has tried either of these.

[CFT]

OC, your first name wouldn't be Heston by any chance?

I look forward to seeing the results.

Edited February 12, 2008 by CFT (log)

[Dejah]

Where have you been, origamicrane? What a great "re-entry"! Looking forward to the results!

[origamicrane]

Where have you been, origamicrane? What a great "re-entry"! Looking forward to the results!

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hiya

yeah i haven't been posting much for a while guess i've been busy

back now

[Prawncrackers]

Fantastic experiment can't wait to see the results. It's shame you couldn't find your spikey implement as i think it gives a very different finish to scoring. Mind you it gives you an excuse to run another tasty experiment!

[origamicrane]

Fantastic experiment can't wait to see the results.  It's shame you couldn't find your spikey implement as i think it gives a very different finish to scoring.  Mind you it gives you an excuse to run another tasty experiment!

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yeah will be repeating this experiment until i get it right

all in the name of science of course

yeah there is definitely a difference between spiking and scoring the skin

but hopefully we be able to tell which method gives the best results.

I've been wondering where my spiked hammer has gone actually

maybe my dad taken it down to the shop.. hmmm.....

anyway i ordered a 35 blade jaccard the other day so I definitely will be repeating this within the next few weeks using only spiking.

Just had a peek this morning and the torched, lye and lemon sections defintely looked a lot drier then the rest followed by the vinegar, soda, vodka.

The wettest looking where the plain scored one and the kiwi one.

just 10 more hours in the fridge and then i can cook them, can't wait to get home from work today.

[sheetz]

Great experiment! BTW, baking powder is pH balanced because it includes an acid along with the soda.

Edited February 12, 2008 by sheetz (log)

[origamicrane]

Great experiment! BTW, baking powder is pH balanced because it includes an acid along with the soda.

←

good point

hmmm... oh well... scrap one piece.

will get the proper stuff for the next attempt.

[origamicrane]

ok

just cooked my pork bellies.

so took the bellies out of the fridge and then lightly sprinkled some more salt on the top.

I used a salt shaker and probably used less then a teaspoonful of salt on the 8 pieces.

Cooking times and temperatures:

put in middle rack of a preheat oven

start with 20 minutes at 240C

then 20 minutes at 200C

then 10 minutes at 240C

followed by 5-10 minutes under the grill

whilst carefully monitoring that crackling isn't burning.

Even before i finished cooking i could already see which ones were working and which weren't. After the initial 20 minutes at 240C you could see that the lye, torched, soda and vodka was already blistering and the kiwi one looked like it was burning.

so the results are as follow

here's a picture of all of the pieces after being in the fridge for 24 hours

you can see which ones have dried more by the slightly dark skin tones the white ones are the ones that are still more wet.

here's what they looked like after cooking

a little bit of burning but nothing a good knife scrap won't remove.

and here is a cross section off all of them together

TEST 1 - BLOW TORCHED SKIN

torched skin after 24 hours in the fridge

out of all the pieces this was pretty much the driest skin, touching it you could tell if was very dry and hard.

torched crackling

had a pretty even bubbling and colour

torched cross section

Verdict: very even colour and even crackling, good crunch with a little resistance.

TEST 2 - LEMON JUICE

lemon skin after 24 hours in the fridge

this looked dryish but the skin still had some suppleness.

lemon crackling

good crackling again not as even but good colour

lemon cross

Verdict: a harder crunch then the blow torched and slightly chewy.

TEST 3 - VINEGAR

vinegar skin after 24 hours in the fridge

similiar to the lemon skin but seemed wetter still.

vinegar crackling

pretty similiar to the lemon in colour and blistering

vinegar cross

Verdict: this crackling was lighter and had a softer crunch compared to the lemon crackling.

TEST 4 - KIWI

kiwi skin after 24 hours in the fridge

the skin was the wettest out of all of them

kiwi crackling

err..... picture says it all, it didn't form crackling but instead turned into burnt plastic skin.

kiwi cross

Verdict: complete failure i guess a protein digestive enzyme is no good for crackling, maybe it digested so much of teh skin that there was nothing to blister? I know that if I use kiwi juice to tenderise meat for more then 6 hours it turns the meat into meat paste.

TEST 5 - VODKA

vodka skin after 24 hours in the fridge

this was surprising, as the skin seemed pretty dry

vodka crackling

very even crackling and colour whilst this was cooking i could see this was the one that was forming the most uniform crackling

vodka cross

Verdict: a very good crackling, light crunch, very even blistering and colouring.

TEST 6 - BAKING POWDER

baking powder skin after 24 hours in the fridge

skin was pretty dry and seemed hard, not very supple.

baking powder crackling

This looked like it was forming good crackling at the end of the designated cooking time but the middle still hadn't blister completely so I left it under the grill for a further 3 minutes. End result was not as even colour or blistering.

baking powder cross

Verdict: reasonably crunch but was noticably more chewy then the previous ones.

TEST 7 - LYE WATER

lye skin after 24 hours in the fridge

this skin was very dry and took on a hard waxy appearance

lye crackling

hehehe a picture says a thousand words? this was easily the best crackling in colour and blistering,

the crackling actually rose and seperated from the fat layer.

In fact this was already blistering in the initial 20 minutes of cooking.

lye cross

Verdict: easily the best looking crackling and crunchiest but also had a very slight chewiness.

TEST 8 - SCORED

scored skin after 24 hours in the fridge

this still looked pretty wet in comparison to the torched and alkaline brushed pieces.

scored crackling

this one had the best golden colour and even blistering but might have been due to the fact it was the middle piece. I scored this one a lot more in both horizontal and vertical directions.

scored cross

Verdict: this crackling was tougher and chewier then the rest although having said that it would still be acceptable to most people.

This was great fun and the winner of the best crackling was easily won by the Lye Water. The baking powder did surprisingly well and next time i will use pure bicarbonate of soda rather then baking powder and see if i get an even better crackling.

So it looks like the chinese restaurants were right about lye water.

Lye water did produce the best crackling but it didn't produce the best siu yook in my opinion as siu yook should have the crackling still attached to the meat.

Surprisingly the best siu yook in my opinion was my wild card vodka as it had the best colour and crunch and most even blistering and still had the crackling attached to the meat. Think i will repeat this using a 60-80% alcohol solution next time and pit it against pure baking soda and lye water.

the worst one was the kiwi as it just started burning rather then blistering.

so my order of preference

1. vodka

2. lye

3. baking powder

4. torched

5. vinegar

6. lemon

7. scored

8. kiwi - not really counted as it completely failed

BTW just to clarify apart from the kiwi all the other 7 were really sucessful.

If I had to taste all 7 cracklings in a blind taste test, the lye and vodka would have been clear winners but for the remaining 5 it would have been very hard to distinguish between them.

So basically all the different methods do work very well but the lye and vodka do have the edge on lightness and crunchiness.

I will repeat this experiment again next month with the following changes

I will just use a spiked hammer to pierce the skin rather then score it

and i will do three tests

1. lye water

2. a 60-80% alcohol solution

3. a 50% bicarbonate of soda solution

and leave them for 2 days in the fridge.

If anyone has any observation or suggestions please let me know

Edited February 13, 2008 by origamicrane (log)

[canucklehead]

This is really excellent - another step towards trying to make this at home. Really - fantastic.