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Pork Belly


Baboontyme

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I picked one up at RD to smoke next week up at the lake. No, drunk guy is not invited.

I've never done one before. S&P and cook until ?? Other suggestions? Make some kind of crazy Vietnamese sandwich out of it, serve with garnish and tell everyone I invented it? Halp.

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I've done a couple of belly's recently as I was getting bored (blasphemy, I know!) with brisket.  Take off the skin and make cracklings.  Treat the rest of the belly just like you would a brisket.  For me, that means cracked pepper and kosher salt over smoke.  I usually wrap in butcher paper after 3 or 4 hours and finish in a low oven until everything is rendered.  Rest (or even better, let it cool overnight in refrigerator) before you cut (against the grain!) and re-heat before serving. Enjoy!

Edited by DalTxHornFan
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thomas keller's pork belly confit is the most laborious version of it i've done.  also the most rewarding.

http://ladyandpups.com/2013/05/20/creme-brulee-d-pork-belly-confit-eng/

 

most of the time, i do a philipino adobo, which more or less is braising the thing in soy sauce and vinegar.  good to add a shelled egg to it as well to make it like chinese claypot style.

 

in lazier times i just boil the motherfucker until it turns pale.  which is really quickly.  then slice and serve by itself or with your choice of sauce (sriracha, whatever).  i think thats done in vietnamese cooking.

 

if you want the classic crispy skin roast version, you almost dont have to prep it at all.  unless you get a slab (rather than strips), then you want to score the fat so it doesnt curl.  then roast it for longer than you think.  its sorta like a brisket - it gets done first, and then the fat renders and makes it more tender.  if you take it out of oven too soon its just touch and chewy.

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On 7/14/2018 at 5:14 PM, 52-80 said:

 

if you want the classic crispy skin roast version, you almost dont have to prep it at all.  unless you get a slab (rather than strips), then you want to score the fat so it doesnt curl.  then roast it for longer than you think.  its sorta like a brisket - it gets done first, and then the fat renders and makes it more tender.  if you take it out of oven too soon its just touch and chewy.

Yeah I'm just going to be putting it on the smoker. Nothing too complicated. Pic below. I think it's 1 piece - a slab. It's 12.35 lbs. So leave the skin on or no?

42529400165_9ca629f377_z.jpg

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1 hour ago, Baboontyme said:

So leave the skin on or no?

Take off the skin.  Make cracklings.  Slice the skin into strips around a quarter-inch wide or so.  Toss them into some boiling salted water for a minute or so.  Remove, strain and rinse them off in cold water.  Pat them dry and season with kosher salt and optional: garlic powder, black pepper and/or red pepper flakes.

Roast them on a wire rack in a 425 degree oven (shake or stir them to make sure everybody is getting crispy) for 30 minutes or so until crispy.  Let them cool on a paper towel and try to save some for the other people you plan to serve.

 

Edited by DalTxHornFan
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42 minutes ago, DalTxHornFan said:

Take off the skin.  Make cracklings.  Slice the skin into strips around a quarter-inch wide or so.  Toss them into some boiling salted water for a minute or so.  Remove, strain and rinse them off in cold water.  Pat them dry and season with kosher salt and optional: garlic powder, black pepper and/or red pepper flakes.

Roast them on a wire rack in a 425 degree oven (shake or stir them to make sure everybody is getting crispy) for 30 minutes or so until crispy.  Let them cool on a paper towel and try to save some for the other people you plan to serve.

 

Thanks. If I'm not sure I want to make cracklings do I still need to take the skin off for the sake of the end product? I am also making sausage up there and figure I could use the skin/fat cap to fatten up the links if need be. 

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Are you sure it's skin on? I'm old and can't tell from the pic if that's skin or a fat cap. All the ones I've seen at RD are skin-off. So check the label and see what it says. As mentioned above, you'll want to remove the skin if its a skin-on slab.

 

I cut slabs into three portions because they cook faster that way. Light salt and pepper, put on pit, cook until probe tender. That's typically 202-206 for me but it will depend largely on how thick the slab is. Sliced pork belly is soooo fucking good when it is properly rendered.

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Thanks all. I read some conflicting things about the skin. What it boiled down to was that I only had 5 mouths to feed, we were pretty well fed by that point in the night anyway, so I chopped the thing into two equal slabs and left the skin on one, and took the skin off of the other. And actually we only even tried to eat the one with the skin off so I don't know how that goes with the skin on. The skin was a bitch to cut off pre-cook on the one slab. It was very good, though. 

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Good weekend, as per usual. One of the best of the year. 

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Was at Costco tonight and usually poke around while I'm there. My local one usually doesn't have pork belly but I came across these packages of skinless, already cut into strips pork belly. Picked up a couple of them and will look forward to throwing them on the smoker soon.bc461cbb0316a83a9c92932d3f55e0f5.jpg

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  • 3 years later...
1 hour ago, Hook1997 said:

Just bought one to smoke with a brisket Monday so I figured I’d bump this.  I see a lot of recipes online call for cubing it before you smoke?  To me smoking it whole makes more sense.  

I do deep cuts on them, just like I do with a pork shoulder.  My theory is that it gets more of the rub and smoke flavor into the meat.  Who knows?  But I damn sure don't want a bunch of meat falling through the grill!

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33 minutes ago, DalTxHornFan said:

I do deep cuts on them, just like I do with a pork shoulder.  My theory is that it gets more of the rub and smoke flavor into the meat.  Who knows?  But I damn sure don't want a bunch of meat falling through the grill!

Never done it with pork shoulder, but the videos on pork belly typically show deep cuts across the PB in a grid pattern an inch or two per square.

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1 hour ago, dcbc said:

Never done it with pork shoulder, but the videos on pork belly typically show deep cuts across the PB in a grid pattern an inch or two per square.

I do that kind of grid deep cut on most any big meats (phrasing!) that I cook.  Leg of lamb, prime rib, cabrito, whole hams, pork shoulders and such.  It gives some additional texture and flavor to the meat, I think.

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10 hours ago, DalTxHornFan said:

I do deep cuts on them, just like I do with a pork shoulder.  My theory is that it gets more of the rub and smoke flavor into the meat.  Who knows?  But I damn sure don't want a bunch of meat falling through the grill!

By deep cuts do you mean that you score the top of the pork belly? The purpose of that is usually to draw out some moisture, which helps render the fat and make a crisper crackling but you might need a bit of high heat at the end.

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10 hours ago, Sam Lin said:

If your goal is meat candy, cut before smoking gets you smoke on all sides, and lets you season all sides.

This if you are making burnt ends, cube them, place on a rack with a little space in between, season and smoke.  Finish in liquid - butter, brown sugar, honey.

I've seen pork belly tacos with sliced strips.  In that case, cook whole with deep cuts for smoke flavor and rubs.

 

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i cure mine in apple cider, salt, bay leafs, peppercorn, thyme, star anise and brown sugar for 48 hours before patting dry, scoring the fat side, seasoning it and throwing it on the offset.  game changer.  
 

occasionally i’ll take it off at the 1:30 mark, cube it and finish it as PB burnt ends…light coating of flake salt and tossed in jalapeño jelly.  

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Pork belly turned out good, smoked for like four hour then wrapped for two and back on the pit for thirty minutes or so.  Brisket being only a 5.5 pound point ended up taking longer then I thought….  So I upped the temp to 300 when wrapped to finish it on time and dried it out a bit, tasted good still.  

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On 7/1/2022 at 3:39 PM, Hook1997 said:

Just bought one to smoke with a brisket Monday so I figured I’d bump this.  I see a lot of recipes online call for cubing it before you smoke?  To me smoking it whole makes more sense.  

First time I saw the "cubed before smoked" method I thought the same, makes the most sense that you'd have a better chance of it not drying out etc... but honestly, there's so much fat in a pork belly you really don't need to worry about it. Plus, it's a way for all of us bark-whores to get full bark coverage.

BUTTTT... if I'm being honest, I do mine in strips, then cube for the sauce sauna. 

Edited by UncleBuck
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