• A beer or two. No, not for drinking, that’s separate.
How to make it
1. Make sure Pork Belly is clean and all the truly obnoxious parts are trimmed off. The fat is not considered obnoxious. [Photo26366]
2. Lay the slab fat-side up on a cutting board and dry it off with a paper towel. With a really sharp knife, score the belly. Cut some diagonal lines across the fat of the belly going one way, then repeat going the other way, so that you've got a nice festive diamond pattern in the fat. Make the cuts shallow to avoid cutting into the meat.
3. Mix together all of the rub ingredients but the olive oil. Stir these up until they’re well mixed.
4. Rub your pork belly down with a nice hearty drizzle of olive oil, and then rub the dry ingredients in well. Don’t be lazy or shy.
5. Drop your pork belly into a freezer bag and put it in the fridge for an hour or two. [Photo26367]
6. Heat your oven to 500° F (260° C). Remove the Belly from the bag and lay it fat-side up on the rack of your roasting pan and place the roasting pan on the middle rack in the oven. [Photo26368]
7. Spend the next 10 to 15 minutes checking it regularly; at some point the fat will start to bubble and turn light brown. When that happens, turn the oven temperature down to 325° F. (165° C) and leave it alone for 90 minutes.
8. After 90 minutes, open a, room temp, beer and pour it into the bottom of the roasting pan. Walk away for 30 minutes, then pour in a second, room temp, beer and walk away for another 30 minutes. When the hour is up, remove it from the oven and let it cool for 15-20 minutes.
9. The stuff on the bottom of the pan will be fatty syrup by this time, and the Pork Belly aficionados say it will be a good thing to pour over the meat when it's all sliced or shredded. Well, maybe. As for cooking it, though, you're finished.
We let it cool a while and then shredded it. As I said, it had heaps of flavor and most of the fat was in the baking pan. Most of the shredded meat went to sandwiches.
The liquid in the bottom of the baking pan was mostly fat but there was juice. I poured both into a covered bowl, let it cool and put it in the fridge. I used the fat that came to the top in dog food. The juice under the fat had great flavor and I used that, with some water added, to season several dishes that called for stock.