Did you know that the roast pork belly you see in the windows of a Chinese restaurant is very, very easy to make? It doesn’t take a genius to put this all together.
This is another recipe from my geeky parents (they’re of course not as geeky as me).
Ingredients:
– Pork Belly (any size) – you might be lucky to find this in your local supermarket, if not I suggest going to the butchers for a nice cut
– Salt
– Char siu sauce (or hoisin sauce … or anything you like i.e. bbq sauce, plum sauce or add Chinese five spices…)
– teaspoon of vinegar or lemon juice (optional)
1. You can do this part at any stage of the preparation. If you have either a boneless pork belly or one with bones you will need to cut the under part length ways ensuring that the skin at the top stays intact.
2. Next using a fork, preferably one that is long, poke the skin. You need to make a lot of holes in that skin so imagine you’re poking someone you really, really hate. Some Chinese people like using a device called a poker – so if you one of those then I suggest you use that. DaddyGeek recommended using kitchen scissors… it’s really up to you on how you poke!
This picture is not clear, but it should look like it’s been poked a lot!
3. You can do this part last, but for some reason I chose to this part next… Add the sauce of your choice at the base of the pork belly. Make sure you add the sauce into the parts you had cut earlier. Spread evenly and make sure none of it gets onto the skin.
4. Place a metal plate or an oven safe dish on top of a baking rack + tray.
5. Flip over the pork belly and place on top of the metal plate.
6. This part you can do after the poking… add lots of salt onto the skin. Rub it throughout the skin as if you’re having a sea salt scrub ^_^
At this point you can add a splash of vinegar of lemon juice to give it some extra crispiness. Add more salt and scrub that skin! Then leave for 3 hours so that the skin dries before roasting.
7. Preheat oven to the highest gas mark. Then put in the pork belly. Roast the “left side” for 20 minutes then switch and roast the “right side” for a further 20 minutes.
You should hopefully have a crispy top… unfortunately this didn’t dry too well… but tasted good!!
Of course I had some for dinner!!!! ^___^
This was my second attempt… still didn’t get that really crispy skin texture…. Maybe third time lucky????
Simple enough? I think it is…
A Simple Geeky Life 