Marinated Pork Belly. Image credit: Hangry.Recipes
Enjoy this beautifully marinated pork belly with delicious flavours like honey, cinnamon, and chillies popping through.
Pork belly is considered a far superior cut than bacon by chefs. The pork belly has juicy fat layers wrapped around the meat. Thus, even though there isn’t a lot of meat, once cooked, it becomes deliciously tender. Another great thing about this cut is that it is relatively cheap when compared to other cuts.
The trick to cooking pork belly to perfection is to combine gentle heat to tenderise the mean and then short, high-temperature blasts for that crispy skin. And in order to get that desired crisp on the skin, it is important to remember to pat the meat dry before cooking.
We know that this doesn’t seem to make sense, especially after marinating the meat for so many hours. But this is when you trust the process. When the meat is dry on the outside, it will trap all the moisture inside. If any moisture is left on the outside, the surface will not be able to get crispy. The same patting method is also used whenever a recipe calls you to “braise” the meat.
After the pork has been patted dried, rub the skin with ground salt. The salt will react with the fat and this caused the crackling to puff up and become crisp.
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