Pork Belly with Sichuan Crab Apple Ketchup Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What are 3 ways that pork belly can be cooked? ›

Here's a look at three easy ways to cook it: stovetop, grilling and oven roasted. It's a triple threat on the delicious front. Stovetop: Use 500 grams of pork belly, basically enough to cover the bottom of your pan in one layer.

Place pork belly (in foil boat) in oven on center rack, and place a drip pan underneath to catch any fat that happened to drip. Cook approximately 1.5 hours, though a lot will depend on the size of your pork belly. You want to cook until the internal temperature is 160-165°F.

Once you have the belly, the next thing you'll need to do is boil it, which helps render out some of the fat before frying. Based on other recipes I've seen, there's a split between boiling the belly in plain salted water and water that has additional seasonings like garlic, peppercorns, bay leaves, and soy sauce.

So, streaky pork bacon is pork belly, but pork belly isn't bacon. Instead, pork belly is the whole slab cut from the fleshy underside of a pig. Streaky pork bacon is cut from this slab. Pork belly is unsmoked and uncured, while much bacon found in the U.S. can undergo a lot of processing—not ButcherBox bacon, though.

Pork belly needs a combination of slow, gentle heat to tenderise the meat, plus a shorter blast at a higher heat to crisp up the skin. Cook at 180C/160C fan/gas 4 for 2 hrs 15 mins, then turn up the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6 for a further 35 minutes to crisp the crackling.

Slow roast 1 1/2 hours – Roast the pork in a 140°C/285°F oven (120°C fan) for a total of 2 1/2 hours. Keeping the temperature this low allows the meat to become tender, for the fat to render (melt) so we get the “confit” cooking effect, and also to dry out the pork skin yet keep it supple.

Pork can be eaten and prepared in various forms: cured, smoked, roasted, broiled, grilled, steamed, sauteed, stir fried, braised, fried, and stewed.

It is a fatty, flavorful cut of meat that is used to make bacon. It's also commonly roasted, braised, and grilled. Pork belly is a popular ingredient in many Asian dishes, such as Korean barbecue, Chinese roast pork, and Vietnamese bánh mì sandwiches.

Choose the Right Cut of Pork

But to get the best results, you'll want to be picky about the particular cut of belly you get. What we're looking for here is what in Chinese is called 三层肉, which literally translates to '3-layer meat', meaning there's a clear distinction between the skin, the fat, and the meat.