Sous Vide Pork Belly

[Bernie]

First post so please be gentle.

 

I have been using Sous Vide for several years, mainly to cook steak, pork sirloin and lamb rump.

 

Thought I would share experiences.

I purchased pork belly from Costco.

I divided into 3 so I could try 3 different methods.

Each of these pieces would be further divided in 2 after cooking to produce 2 single servings.

1 Brine

Made up a brine of

1/2 cup salt

1/2 cup of light brown sugar

2 tablespoons of whole black peppercorns

couple sprigs of Thyme

Boiled for a minute or so allowed to cool, a few ice cubes  to cool, placed the first piece of pork belly in this in the fridge overnight.

2 Dry Rub

25 gm sugar

25 gm salt

1 teaspoon Paprika

1/3 teaspoon ground coriander

1/3 teaspoon ground cardamon

mixed thoroughly in a spice grinder and coated pork belly in it in the fridge overnight

3 Marinade 

1/2 cup soy sauce

1/2 cup dry Apera (can't call it sherry anymore)

1/2 cup of white sugar

2 Tablespoons of fish sauce

1/2 brown onion finely chopped

1 inch of fresh ginger (thickness of a mans thumb) finely chopped

Mixed together place in vacuum bag vacuumed & sealed placed in fridge over night.

 

Next morning heated bath to 62 degrees C (~143F) . Dried and pat dry the brine and dry rum pork belly & vacuum bag them. The dry rub had leached out some of the juices/water in the pork belly.

Placed all three bags in the bath for 24 hrs.

 

After 24 hrs transferred to ice bath to cool them then in the fridge till needed.

 

The first to try was the marinaded pork belly. Heated the bag in 74 degree (~165F)  bath for 1/2 hour. Then emptied the bag  and patted dry the top of the pork belly and coated lightly with white vinegar & placed  in the oven under the grill (the "grill" in Australia may be a separate grill chamber (broiler?) or in my case its a grilling element in the oven)

Left for 25 minutes at high heat trying to get the top to form crackling. Only partially acceptable.

The marinade I kept, added about a cup of beef stock (what I had at the time) and reduced to 1/3 for a sauce.

Verdict:

Meat texture was excellent. Fat was not totally transformed but was no longer excessively oily. The taste was great! The crackling was only just crisp, not really what was desired but OK. The sauce was excellent

 

The second tried was the brine pork belly.

Heated in the water bath the same way. Patted dry the top, lightly coated in white vinegar and Into the hot oven with the grill on high. After 10 minutes used a propane torch to try to crisp up the top. Again only partially successful.

Verdict:

Meat and fat texture almost the same as cured ham. Taste was excellent and the meat was not salty.

 

The third little parcel I put in the freezer. I want to see what effect freezing has on it. Of the three packets this dry rub potion seemed to have lost a bit of moisture. Perhaps it would have been better to apply the dry rub then immediately vacuum bag to retain the liguids. My thinking was that since the run contained a fair amount of salt i did not want to sous vide in a very salty liquid.

I am hoping the time in the freezer will age it slightly. Have penciled in another week to see.

Unfortunately I did not take photos. Wasn't actually a member when I did this last month.

 

As I expect most do, I got the basic recipes off the net and make adjustments to what i think

 

I normally smoke then slow cook pork belly over a bed of vegetables (potatoes, carrots sweet potatoes, parsnips, onions, button mushrooms, capsicum, tomatoes) for a couple of hours. The vegetables are worth the effort alone. I think I will be doing the marinade method in future though

[Okanagancook]

Well done.  All three sound delicious.

You may have thought about this already...take the skin off and cook separately.  You would probably have to put it between two wire racks with a weight on top in order to keep the crackling from curling.  If you score it fairly well you would be able to cut it into smaller pieces to be placed on top of the meat.