A unified theory of perfect roast pork belly

[ChrisTaylor]

It took me a good couple of years to get my head around pork belly. Truly. I followed many recipes but was always let down by the shitty oven in my shitty rental. Now I'm in a new non-shitty rental with a mediocre, as opposed to downright shitty, oven. It helps.

The technique I follow to get perfectly crispy crackle is based on this guy's recipe. He uses a box cutter to score the skin, pours boiling water over it and then sits it in the fridge--covered, mind you--overnight while it marinates (the meat, not the skin) in whatever marinade pleases him. He then roasts it a very high temperature. Instead of rubbing little grains of salt into the pork, he uses rock salt, so it can easily be brushed off later.

His method does result in crisp skin but you run the risk of burning the skin. Cranking the oven to 250*C and turning on the grill/broiler isn't really needed.

So, having cooked his pork belly twice and adapted it a little--lowering the oven temp was the first, obvious step--I want to take it a step further. He says his recipe is all about the crisp skin and he's not lying. The meat doesn't break down anywhere near as much as I'd like it too. I'm kicking around various ideas for improvement ...

* brining the meat before marinating it (assuming I marinate it at all--the marinades don't really penetrate the meat and merely increase the risk of the flesh burning, if anything I'd keep it really simple with a mixture of white wine, white wine vinegar, herbs, garlic, carrots and onions)

* maybe half-submerging the belly in some stock or something--I'm just concerned that with that extra moisture I'd prevent the skin from crisping up, thereby taking a backwards step

* aside from the first and maybe last 20-30 minutes, really cutting the temp.--I mean, surely the skin will dry out (which is all you're doing, really) at 120*C or 150*C

* after scoring and scalding the skin, letting it dry in the fridge for at least a few hours with the skin uncovered

I like the crispy skin but to me pork belly is--and should be--about more than crunchy skin and fat. I want the fat to render into the meat so it's juicy and tender and flavoursome. If I was just after crunch I'd buy a bag of potato crisps.

Thoughts?

Edited April 11, 2011 by ChrisTaylor (log)

[CFT]

Check out origamicrane's posts from page 2 on this thread: Siu Yook (Roast Pork Belly)

[ChrisTaylor]

I'm happy with the crackling. I'm concerned about the actual meat. That post--and that thread, altho' the experiment is very interesting--doesn't go into that.

[jackal10]

You can cook the meat and the skin as two seperate operations.

Cook the meat long, low and and slow 180F/82C for 8 hours or so, or 65C/150F for 24 hours sous vide or in a low oven. Score first.

Then do your drying and high heat thing for the crackling

Links to the SV discussion http://egullet.org/p1777784

[ChrisTaylor]

I don't have a sous vide setup yet and don't intend to get one by Friday but you've raised a fair point--I'm reminded of Heston Blumenthal's quest for the perfect Peking duck.

So basically I'd ...

Take the pork belly. Brine it (my own addition). Score it. Roast it really low and slow. Place it in the fridge. Dry the skin. The next day--or a few hours later--stick it in a hot oven for a while? How hot? I mean, in the Table for Two recipe, it's a good hour before it's crisp at the ~200*C temp, all the while the flesh is drying out in addition to the skin. Bubbles appear at the 30 minute mark but it's not crisp all over for some time. I want to avoid grilling it as then I risk ruining my hard work. Would pouring hot oil over it be a good idea (as in Blumenthal's Peking duck episode)?

Too, the Chinese pork belly thread makes me wonder if I should shun scoring and instead prick the skin all over.

I guess another test run is in order before I serve this up to people on Friday.

Edited April 11, 2011 by ChrisTaylor (log)

[jackal10]

The trick is to get the pork skin very dry first. Much dryer than just from the fridge. Long slow cooking uncovered in an oven helps, as does first wiping it with vodka as suggested in the Siu Yook thread.

Then high directed heat - grill or blowtorch. You can scrape the burnt bits off. I guess you could deep fry, but I've not tried it exceot with porky scratchings

I would be very careful about pouring hot oil over it as its not easy.

[ChrisTaylor]

I have a blow torch. I'll experiment with that in place of my oven's electric grill, which I think is a bit ... abrupt. I know I can--and I do--scrape off the burnt bits but I find it doesn't burn the pork evenly, so while one part is starting to burn another part is still crisping up. Oddly, turning the pork around doesn't seem to resolve this as much as you'd expect. You can only do so much with a knife. The blow torch gives me more control.

[rarerollingobject]

And if you do choose to brine, I'd try to submerge it to just below the skin. Making the skin any more moist is going to cause problems.

[ChrisTaylor]

Yeah, I plan on treating it like a marinade--crocodile-in-the-swamp.

[ChrisTaylor]

Just poured boiling water over the scored belly and sat it, crocodile-in-the-swamp-like, in a brine. I have rock salt sitting on the skin.

The plan of attack:

* Brush the skin with a bit of Armagnac (I don't have vodka on hand but I do have some Armagnac that's only good for cooking, really).

* Roast at 75*C for seven hours. Taking a leaf from the Chinese pork belly thread, it will sit atop aromatics: in my case I have some onion and fennel. Maybe I'll add some garlic and sage leaves. I'll ensure one side of the belly sits higher than the other so any liquid, oil, etc can rub off. I'll keep an eye on the bottom of the tray: if the belly is swimming I'll drain it.

* Crank the heat up to as high as my oven can go (~240*C) for about 20-30 minutes. If it looks a bit sad at this point I'll fire up the butane torch.

* Serve it with an assortment of roast vegetables: beetroot, potato, sweet potato.

I should add that for the three attempts at this I've made in the past fortnight, I've been using pork belly from one of the local butchers. It's not very good. Cheap, yes, but the quality is of a fairly low standard and it's clearly been cut by someone who doesn't give a shit. I have several butchers within walking distance but all but two are halal and are likely to get offended when I wander in and ask, 'Why no pork belly?' This, no doubt, has an impact on the quality of the end result. When I cook it on Friday I'll make a special trip to get some good stuff but I didn't want to go the extra expense while I was getting my technique down.

Edited April 12, 2011 by ChrisTaylor (log)

[johnmc]

All I can say is....

Pacific House, Victoria St, Richmond - Crispy skin pork

Cheap, and I can't make better at home.

John

Edited April 12, 2011 by johnmc (log)

[ChrisTaylor]

Nope.

Maybe it's the meat I'm using, which is of a pretty poor standard, but this one didn't work. The skin didn't crisp up as evenly as the shorter cooking time version and the meat wasn't noticeably more tender. Again, I emphasise the quality of the meat. Locally I don't have many options. Local butchers compete on price and ethnic lines rather than the quality of the wares they offer.

So, the next version, I'm thinking:

• Stick, by and large, with the successful recipe: just lose the 250*C bit of the recipe I linked, as that's way too hot for any roast
  
• Brine for 5-6 hours as opposed to the 3-4 I did today
  
• Score the skin and let it air dry in the fridge, uncovered, overnight
  
• Forget about rubbing fennel seeds into the skin along with the rock salt--I'm wondering if these detracted from the crispiness of the skin in some way
  
• Possibly rub some more brandy into the skin (or just buy a vodka mini, to replicate the Chinese pork belly experiment exactly)
  
• Forget about the butane torch
  

[ChrisTaylor]

Trying a modified version of the recipe today.

Day one: immersed the boneless pork belly in brine.

Day two: removed from brine. Scored and scalded. Rubbed rock salt and vodka into skin. Air-dried in fridge.

Day three (today): dried with paper towel. Oven: 100*C, six hours-ish. We'll see what it looks like after the six hours. If need be I'll use the grill or a frypan.

[Franci]

Thanks for posting. I'll take advantage of your experimenting

[ChrisTaylor]

Yesterday's effort produced a very nice piece of pork belly. The best I've made so far.

I crisped up the skin under the grill/broiler.

Edited November 13, 2011 by ChrisTaylor (log)

[lesliec]

Hi Chris. Have you tried rolling your belly (maybe I should rephrase that ...)?

A friend of mine picked up the technique from (I think) an Aussie TV chef and told me about it. Dead easy: roll the belly, skin side out, around some fresh herbs of your choice with a bit of salt and pepper; tie it firmly; score and rub the skin with oil and salt; roast at 180°C for about twice as long as you'd think you should - say four hours. The skin ends up glass-crisp and the interior, because it's been protected from the worst of the heat, totally juicy.

Try variations - maybe stick with your brining step and skip the herbs.

You realise of course that at the end of all this you're going to be heartily sick of pork belly?

[sheetz]

Chris, have you tried confiting the pork belly and then pan frying the rind?

http://yearoftheglutton.blogspot.com/2008/11/confit-pork-belly.html

[ChrisTaylor]

Not yet. No. I figure that sounds like a logical next step and all--at least it is, I mean, until I get a sous vide rig.

I should add that in the latest version, I didn't use any aromatics--the pork (flesh, not the skin) was lightly seasoned with black pepper but that was it ... and mostly because I felt it needed something. The crackling ended up perfectly and evenly crisp. No dodgy soggy bits. No burnt bits. I didn't stab or slash evenly or anything--basically I just went nuts with a box cutter and used more alcohol and rock salt than I initially thought sensible. Maybe half way through cooking the skin seemed a bit moist (despite all the effort I'd put into drying it out) so I just wiped it with a paper towel. Maybe that's the secret (of course, you want to be really careful doing this if you're cooking your pork at >100C ...)

But. Yeah. Sick of pork belly? Or pork, even? Surely you jest.

[Dave Hatfield]

What a lot of fuss everyone seems to be going through. You can make superior pork belly far more easily.

I can't believe that I haven't posted my PB recipe on my blog, but I haven't. I'll rectify that the next time I do a PB.

Here's the method:

- Score the PB skin using a very sharp knife or box cutter. Make the scores one nice serving slice apart. Make sure you have completely cut through the skin, minimize the amount of cutting the meat underneath.

- Peel & Cut several yellow onions in half. You want enough to prop up the PB in the roasting tin.

- Line the onions up along the roasting tin & place the PB on top. Try to get the skin as flat as possible by moving the onions around. This will help later when you make the crackling.

- Salt & pepper the skin. You can use sea salt & rub it in a bit if you like.

- Place the PB in a low oven. (120-140 C)& roast for at least 4 hours.

- At the end of the roasting period turn on the oven grill. Watch the PB skin closely as it starts to form crackling. You may want to turn the PB & its tin around about half way through to get a more even crackling.Depends upon your oven & grill.

- Take the PB out of the oven & let it rest for a few minutes before slicing.

- Slice the PB along the cuts in the skin so that you have nice slices with crackling to serve.

- Serve the onions as well, they're delicious. (Also, good is to put carrots, sliced into matchstick size, in the roasting tin along with the onions. Again, delicious!)

That's it; works every time with no fuss or bother.

[dcarch]

Very few people have kitchen knives sharp enough to score tough pork skin.

Invest in a surgical scalpel and some scalpel blades. They are very inexpensive on eBay. You will find a big difference.

I bought some a few years back, 100 blades + blade holder, $8.00. The first blade is still sharp. I should have enough blades for 400 years of pork belly making. :-)

dcarch

[Dave Hatfield]

Great idea!

My Japanese chef's knife does the job for me without any hassle.

I like to use it because the long blade & cutting edge make it easier to cut straight slices in a large pork belly.

Must & will do a pictorial on my blog

[Broken English]

You could remove the skin and puff it by dipping it in a boiling sweetened brine containing 9% salt, and 1.5% each of glucose and sugar, then drying it in a low oven. Then dip it in a vinegar solution and deep fry it. I got that from modernist cuisine and it seems to me that is the best way to treat the skin if you want it crisp.

If you're dead set on keeping the skin and pork as one though, I'd slow roast it, press it overnight, portion it then crisp the skin in a pan, then transfer the pan to the oven to reheat the pork and further crisp the skin, though it won't get wonderfully puffy this way.