(Chinese) Roast Pork Belly / Lechon

Another day, another belly...



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I bought pork belly last week in the hopes of doing it as adobo. We discussed the pros and cons of an adobo pork belly.

Pro: it's superdelicious, loved by all, easy to make.
Con: can't really do another blog entry on pork adobo. (And we've also blogged about chicken adobo too!)

We wanted to do something superdelicious, loved by all, easy to make, and bloggable.

So our thoughts turn to another Filipino application of pork belly, that is, lechon kawali.

Lechon kawali is pork belly cut into bite-sized cubes, which are then usually deep-fried. Lechon kawali is similar to the "roast pig" served in Cantonese noodle houses. I don't know if the preparation is the same (deep-frying). The skin of "roast pig" (not to be confused with BBQ pork) is usually more blistery than lechon kawali.

The important thing to both these dishes is the crispy, crispy skin which contrasts with the ultrasoft fat and the tender meat. It is a marvel to eat because one gets three different textures all once with a bite.

I searched for how to prepare "roast pig" at home and it seemed to be fairly straightforward. I knew we didn't want to be deep-frying, and unlike lechon ni Betchon, we did not have a turbo convection oven to use for the bellies. They would have to go into the oven.

sim cooks recipe: home-made roast pork

Her dish looked like traditional roast pig, so I set about following her technique.

The seasoning is five-spice powder and salt. I didn't want to experiment with the seasoning the first time we're doing the dish. In fact, my ratio for five-spice to salt was only 1 to 15. I knew from experience that five spice can be a little overwhelming and I wanted to err on the side of caution.



I rubbed the salt and five spice mixture all over the pork bellies and let them dry-brine in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

Now that we have these metal skewers (bought for shish kebab), they're turning out to be extremely useful.

We used the metal skewers to suspend the bellies above the roasting pan. We figure that them hanging would be better, in that the dry oven heat can get under them and dry-cook them. We didn't want the bellies to be sitting in a pool of its own fat.

I started using two skewers per pork belly piece, but got lazy. I tried to save a skewer!



After the initial 30 minutes in the oven, the skin has turned a light butterscotch-y brown, with some blisters forning at the edges.


Look how they've shrunk!

To get more blisters, the skin would have to be poked a million times. We used a fork at first, then graduated to toothpicks to pierce the skin.

Notice how the skin had a matte finish pre-poking and how it glistened with its own fat post-poking.


poke, poke-poke-poke, poke, poke-poke, poke, poke, poke-poke-poke

Pre-poke:


Post-poke:


Into the oven for another 30 minutes. The skin was getting there, but some parts were still not crispy.

We poked some more and put it back into the oven for more time. At about 15 minutes more, we were afraid that the pork would start to burn. So, although a proportion (about 15%) of the skin surface was still not as crisp as we would like, we pulled out the pork bellies.


It has shrunk even more!

We made a chili-garlic-vinegar condiment to use as a dipping sauce for the pork belly. Served with a side of sauteed bok choy and over some steaming white rice, this was quite heavenly.




This is pretty much a set-it-and-forget-it meal, easy to do on a weeknight, but oh-so-satisfying.

Perhaps pork belly this way is also infinitely variable and I am looking forward to experimenting with different seasonings for the pork.


So here it is! Superdelicious, loved by all, easy to make, and most importantly, bloggable.

[captions provided by TS]

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