You Should Fry the Pork Belly
Slow-cooked pork belly is very difficult to improve. The uncured bacon steak is meaty and tender, with fine lumps of delicious lard. This is already nice, but you have to make it even more enjoyable by giving it a sweet and crispy brulee crust.
It may sound overwhelming, but I am an over-the-top person. You don’t need a spoonful of sugar to pull the pork belly down, but it creates a ton of delicious contrast. The caramelized sweetness accentuates the saltier qualities of the pork, while the brulee skin gives your teeth something delicious. Plus it looks so pretty.
But before we can brulee brulee, we have to cook it, and for that we take out our sous-vide circulators. There are a surprising number of ways to fry a pork belly, but as with ChefSteps before me , I prefer to work very slowly and slowly so that the fat has time to melt, but the meat retains some of its spring. (If you want a more stewed texture, turn the heat up to 176 ℉ and reduce the time to seven hours, or try something in between.) While you probably associate slicing with an aggressive, salty taste – ahem, bacon – pork belly is Like all pork, it is very soft without any spices, so you can make it as salty as you like.
Both mirin and soy sauce are great liquids for making pork belly, but neither was enough for me. However, I had some oxidized vermouth in my fridge, some maple syrup, and (obviously) kosher salt. All of this, combined with leftover black garlic and leeks, is all made for an extremely effective and flavorful package of flavor friends that says it’s free to play with flavors (and liquids, if you like). To make it yourself, you will need:
- 2 pounds boneless pork belly, skin left
- 1 cup dry vermouth
- 1/2 cup maple syrup
- 3 tablespoons kosher salt
- 5 cloves of black garlic (use fried if you don’t have black; raw is not good for sous vide).
- 4-inch slice of leek (white and light green parts only), cut into 1/2 inch ribbons
- Table sugar
Add vermouth, syrup and salt to a gallon freezer bag, squeeze and stir. Crush the garlic with the flat of a knife and place in a bag along with the leeks. Add belly, squeeze out as much air as possible and place in 155 degrees bath for 24 hours. At the end of cooking, remove the bag, drain the juices through a sieve into a saucepan and bring the liquid to a boil. While it is cutting, broil the pork.
If you’ve followed my recipe for broiling liquid, you’re dealing with a rather salty piece of pig, and you should feel perfectly comfortable adding sugar. I used about 1/2 teaspoon for every 3 1/2 “x 4” pork and I am very happy with the results. Simply dust it over and, using a butane burner set on a medium-low flame, gently caramelize the sugar with slow, sweeping strokes.
Let it rest to harden the shell and return to the pot on the stove again. Give the contents a taste and, if a little salty, add a little brown sugar and / or rice vinegar to balance it out. Wait until it turns into syrup, then serve it to your belly as a dipping sauce. Take a knife, cut a piece and enjoy the excess of it all.