PORK - Chinese Roast Pork 3

By Aemelia

Ingredients

• (A)
• 2 kg Pork Belly with skin - washed and pat very dry. Use a sharp knife and poke through the skin all over, or have your butcher do this for you. On the meat side, make shallow cuts (about 1 cm deep an
• 2 tbsp salt, for rubbing on pork skin
• 4 tbsp white vinegar, for brushing on pork skin at 20 minutes into roasting
• (B)Marinade, mixed together
• 2 cubes of preserved fermented red beancurd (nam yue)
• 1 tbsp Chinese 5-spice powder
• 1 tbsp white pepper
• 1 tbsp salt
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 2 tbsps rice wine

Details

Adapted from happyhomemaker88.com

Preparation

Step 1

1) Rub marinate all over the meat side of the pork belly for a few minutes.

2) Place pork belly meat side down in a rectangular baking tray.

3) Rub another 2 tbsp salt all over the skin.

4) Place uncovered in the refrigerator overnight until an hour before roasting. The air in the fridge will dry out the pork skin.

5) To roast, preheat oven to 200 degrees Celcius or about 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Have both the upper and lower heating elements as well as the fan in the oven on.

6) Place pork belly on a rack in the middle of the oven. Have a pan below to catch the dripping fat during roasting. I placed a piece of aluminium in my pan for easy cleaning later, and I like to save the fat drippings from the roast pork for roasting potatoes for another meal.

7) After 20 minutes have passed, change the oven setting to just the upper heating element or “grill function” or “broil function” on. Brush the white vinegar onto the skin. This will accelerate the cooking process on the pork skin and make it light and crunchy by crackling with bubbles or blisters all over. Occasionally, I opened the oven door slightly for about 10 seconds to let in some fresh air and then closed it back.

Note:
I have turned the meat around. Whenever I see some liquid fat building up on the skin, I would use some paper kitchen towels to dab it, so that the skin is exposed and gets “bubbling” crispy

You have to monitor the pork quite often by looking at the progress of the skin in getting crispy. The total time it takes for the skin to get really light and crispy will depend on your oven and how dry the skin was before roasting.

My butcher told me that the pork skin needs to get charred and burnt as that will mean that the skin has become really crispy all the way through.

When the skin is charred, it means it has cooked all the way through and has became dry and crispy and crunchy. Don’t worry about the burnt parts – use a steak knife that has a serrated edge and you can easily scrape the charred bits off in 2 minutes