Roast pork belly
Hedy Khoo | The New Paper | Wed Dec 26 2012
Singapore, December 26, 2012
If you have been racking your brains for that special dish to wow your guests this festive season, here's a suggestion.
Celebrate with an Asian twist and make siu yuk (Cantonese for roast pork) your centrepiece.
It's a dish that is bound to elicit admiration and delight. It takes a fair amount of willpower to resist the succulent and fragrant meat covered with that crisp and crunchy skin.
While roast pork belly is easily available, it's much harder to find one with the skin perfectly roasted to a biscuit-like texture.
This week, Madam Janet Lo, a housewife in her 40s, shares her recipe for roasted pork belly which will have that perfect crunch - if you do it right.
Madam Lo is originally from Hong Kong and lived in Singapore between 2006 and 2008.
She currently lives in Korea, where her husband works.
Madam Lo - an avid home cook - picked up her culinary interest from her parents.
"On weekends, my father would spend an entire afternoon preparing our dinner. The dishes he made were so yummy. That's why I like homemade food," she says.
"He inspired me to learn how to cook."
For the roast pork, Madam Lo says there are two steps crucial to achieving a superbly crispy skin.
The first is to prick the skin with a pork skin pricking tool - a wooden handle with a set of spikes at one end. If you don't have one, use several skewers tied together.
The second is to scorch the skin, then scrape off the burnt layer. You then scorch and scrape one more time.
For the marinade, instead of fermented bean curd - which some roast pork recipes call for - Madam Lo uses miso paste.
Use white miso paste, says Madam Lo, as the flavour of other types is too strong for this recipe.
The first time I tried out the recipe, I made the mistake of marinating the pork with its skin side down.
This caused the skin to become soggy and it didn't turn out crisp the way I hoped.
Make sure the meat is placed skin side up at all times.
The second time I tried the recipe, after rinsing the pork, I placed it in the fridge to dry out before adding the marinade.
This stage of letting the pork air dry is important. To hasten the process, you can even use an electric fan to blow dry the pork.
Madam Lo suggests serving the roast pork with mustard on the side as it enhances the flavour.
hedykhoo@sph.com.sg
Madam Lo's recipe for roast pork
Ingredients
- 1kg boneless belly pork (preferably square-shaped)
- 4 tbsp fine salt
- 1 tbsp shichimi togarashi (Japanese seven spice) or Chinese five spice powder
- 2 to 3 tbsp shiro miso (white miso paste)
- 5 drops of white rice vinegar
- 2 drops of Chinese rose wine
- 2 drops of Chinese red vinegar
- Wash and dry the belly pork.
- Insert a skewer along all four edges of the pork. This helps to maintain the shape as the meat will shrink during cooking.
- On the meat side of the pork, leaving a border of 2cm along all four sides, make five to six long cuts, 0.5cm deep. These incisions allow the marinade to penetrate the meat. Do not cut too deep.
- Spread the Japanese seven spice or Chinese five spice powder over the meat followed by the miso paste. Take care that the spice and miso paste do not go on the skin.
- Turn the pork, skin side is up.
- Sprinkle the salt, covering the skin.
- Leave it to marinate, skin side up, in the fridge overnight or for at least three hours.
- Remove from the fridge and wipe away the salt.
- In a bowl, mix the white rice vinegar, the red vinegar and rose wine.
- Brush the mixture onto the skin.
- Allow to air dry for at least two hours.
- The skin should be completely dry before roasting. Add more miso paste on the meat side if necessary.
- Place the pork, skin side up, on a roasting rack.
- Preheat the oven to 250 deg C.
- Roast the meat for 10 minutes and remove from the oven.
- Use a pork skin pricking tool, or several skewers, to pierce the skin of the pork.
- Do not pierce beyond the layer of fat under the skin.
- Place the pork back in the oven and allow it to roast until the skin is scorched. This should take 10 to 20 minutes depending on your oven.
- Remove from oven and use a knife to scrape the scorched layer from the skin.
- Place the pork back in the oven and allow it to become scorched again.
- Remove and scrape off the scorched layer.
- Cover the pork with a sheet of aluminium foil. Lower the heat to 180 degrees C and roast for another 25 to 30 minutes until the meat is completely cooked through. Cooking time will depend on your oven.
- Allow the meat to rest for 20 minutes.
- Trim away the burnt parts and slice off about 0.5cm from the bottom of the meat.
- Cut into bite-sized pieces.