Domestic Goddess: Crispy Pork Belly, (Siew Yuk 烧肉) Recipe

Ellya Sam:

I make siew yuk on rare occasions for my friends and family but for the first time, I will be serving special orders of these bad boys at Urban Garden Cafe (Basement, 488 Swanston Street, CBD), which is also where I coincidentally work if you wanted to know. I feel the need to share this recipe as I feel proud that I finally got the crispy going on right (after so long) and I would love for you to experience this feeling I have inside. Pure awesomeness. Also because I know it's mega expensive to purchase Siew Yuk and making it on your own is always the best.

This yummy recipe is adapted from many other recipes I have come accross because I could never get it right with just one recipe (here, here and here). I either get the skin too chewy or too crispy to the point of it being hard. This recipe you will be reading from Proof That Dancers Eat, however, will be fool proof on how to make excellent crispy skin pork. I am going to show you a step-by-step recipe so that you don't fall behind. So you have no excuse now and your pork will never come out chewy and retardedly skinned. LOL you know who I'm talking about. Jokes. Love you.

I went to my local butcher to get a big slab of pork belly and told the butcher to take off the bones. Keep the bones as you can make soup with this later on. (If you want to). It is essential you get female pork belly as you don't want the pork to have that.. porky- over- testosterised (lol) taste. You know what I mean.

You want to make sure that your pork belly is fully thawed and the meat has reached room temperature before you start!

First off, we start with the marinade. It is as simple as combining salt, five spice and fine white pepper. The ratio should be 1: 5: 3 of salt to five spice to fine white pepper. Easy. Pork has a naturally strong taste, so you dont need much to get it tasting good. Now, get that going in a flat dish and move on to your pork.

I bought a 3 kilo pork belly and after a good wash, I pat it dry to prevent any slippage when I score it. Now, remember, to score is to just halfway cut through the skin. NOT all the way through to the meat. Just the skin. I repeat, just halfway through the skin.

Like so.

After scoring lines on my lovely slabs of pork, I then procede to 'poke' the pork. Use your knife, preferably a sharp one, and start stabbing the pork skin. Go for your life, but please be very careful at this step. You wouldn't wanna hurt yourself. 

Then, to speed up the cooking process, I went on ahead to cut my big slabs of meat into half. This step is optional. 

Look at the lovely pork.

The next step is to blanch the pork for about 10 minutes. Boil your water and pour onto the pork. Keep it in there to cook for a bit. 

After the blanching process, take it out and dry it thoroughly. The cracks and all included. Make sure that the pork is as dry as you can get it before getting it into the marinade.

The next step is to dunk the pork in the marinade and cover it up with all the lovely goodness. Make sure that you dont get any marinade on the skin. If you happen to get some on the skin, that's it. End of making crispy pork.

LOL. No I kid, just wipe that shit off. 

Now, it is time to foil those babies on the top, and leave them in the fridge to marinate for 2 hours or preferably, overnight.

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After leaving it to marinade in the lovely goodness, take the pork out to allow it to reach room temperature before attempting to cook it. This allows for more even cooking.

Go walk your dog, take dump. Whatever, just let that piece of pork thaw! Oh, and don't shower. You'll most likely be smelling like pork after cooking this, so I highly suggest you shower after making this lovely meal.

Now you can preheat your oven at 220C Fan Forced. 

Once thawed, make sure you TOWEL DRY the skin. MAKE SURE IT IS BONE DRY BEFORE GOING TO THE NEXT STEP.

The next thing to do is to mix a bit of oil and five spice in a bowl and brush it onto the meat. Do not get this on the skin. Once done place it on the roasting rack to roast for 30 minutes or until the skin turns brown. After a few minutes you notice the insanely yummy smell wafting in your house/ apartment or kitchen, just to generalise. Take a look at your pork, it should be nice, white-ish and well.. ready to get browneddd by the heat!

Put it on the rack, and do a bit more towelling. 

Look at those cosy little things.

In the oven it goes! 

Now, take the pork out and towel dry AGAIN. 

Your pork should look something like this.

Sprinkle large rock salt onto the skin of the pork. Make sure you rub some into the scored lines. Put it back into the oven for another 30 minutes. At this point, your pork skin should be blistering and popping with bubbles. Don't worry about the amount of salt used here, you can always brush that off later on.

You can hear your pork sizzle and crack once you return it to the oven. Which means you're on the right track. Let the pop sizzle crackle begin!

Turn up the oven to 250C and move the pork to the highest tray in the oven and 'grill' it for another 30 minutes at 4 minute intervals to check, just to be safe. Keep a watch on how the skin is looking. It can easy get burnt at this point.

Now, rest the meat for 20 mins and cleaver that yummy baby. Also, note that there WILL be burnt bits. Dont fret, just use a knife and scrape it away. It'll be ok. 

Enjoy your unbelievably crispy pork and good luck! :)

Ingredients:

•  Pork 
•  Five spice powder 
•  Salt (large and fine) 
•  Fine white pepper 
•  Oil

1. Marinade your pork overnight with fivespice, salt and fine with pepper. 
2. Remove from the fridge and allow it to reach room temperature. 
3. Pat the skin till dry. 
4. Cook it at 220C on fan forced for 30 mins or until brown.
5.  Remove from the oven and pat dry again.
6. Sprinkle large salt on pork and return it to the oven for another 30 minutes.
7. 250C highest tray on grilled for 30 minutes checking at 5 minute intervals.

Done. Fool proof. Ain't no secret to a good piece of crispy pork.

If you do happen to try this recipe, let ProofThatDancersEat know how you went with a comment down below! Alternatively, you can instagram us a photo and tag @ellyasam and @mealors! :) Hope this recipe helped you make awesome crispy pork belly, siew yuk.

Also, click onto Domestic Goddess on our labels section on the right hand bar for more recipes. Feel free to suggest recipes as well!