Chinese Spiced Crispy Pork Belly

The only thing that stops me when I think about going on a diet or eating healthy is a nice slab of pork belly with crispy skin and rendered fat and moist meat. The temptation is that at the end of the month when the money is tight, I know I can turn to a belly of pork for its cheapness to get a delicious satisfying meal out of it. Even the organic pork belly comes to about £2.99 for a slab double the size of the one in the picture. If you’re calorie conscious, this £2.99 will feed four people, or two greedy adults.

I think rich crispy pork cooked this way is best served with plain cooked white rice, or egg fried rice if you’re feeling feisty. Add a bowl of chilli sauce on the side and you’ve got yourself a delicious dipper. It’s such a simple meal and yet it tastes so so good.

The only trick is to get the skin cooked properly. If you don’t have crispy skin, you’ve got nothing but plain meat and plain sides. I’ve seen people using hair dryers on the skin to get it crispy, and the chefs tend to take the skin off to cook it separately to ensure crispiness. But I personally don’t think you need to go through all that hassle, as once you have perfected the technique with kitchen towel and a hot oven, you will never look back.

The other thing is to be selective about your cut of pork belly. You want an even amount of meat to fat to skin ratio to get a good balance of flavours. It will look like a good slab of bacon, with consistent meat to fat ratio the whole way through. If it’s uneven your cooking time gets confusing as you’re trying to render the fat whilst keeping the meat moist.

That’s enough talk from me, here’s the recipe.

Ingredients
1 piece flat Pork belly, skin scored
1 tsp Schezuan pepper
1 tsp black Pepper
2 tsp Salt
1 tbsp Chilli sauce, to serve
Handful cabbage or spinach, washed
½ cup Rice, cooked

Recipe
Pre heat oven to 220 degrees. Take your scored pork belly and place it on a tray. Pour boiling water over it, this will make the skin loosen and open up. Remove any boiling water sat on the tray and get a kitchen towel to dry off the skin. Salt the skin and leave for 10 minutes.

Dry the skin again with kitchen towel then add ground schezuan and black pepper. Make sure you get the peppers into the scored lines of the skin so that they penetrate the meat underneath. Place on a baking tray and put in the hot oven for 10 minutes. Add a cupful of water to the bottom of the tray, and reduce the heat to 190 degrees and continue cooking for 30 minutes depending on the size of your meat.

While the meat is cooking, blanch your greens and then toss in a bit of oil and salt and pepper. When the meat is cooked, take it out of the oven and leave it to rest uncovered for 5 minutes. Tap the skin to see if it has crisped up all over. If it hasn’t you can set it under a hot grill for 5 minutes, other cut in half and serve with cooked rice and chilli sauce.