Hk style pork belly with crispy skin (siu yuk)

[M. Lo]

This recipe is one off of my Kamado Bucket List. It was a valiant effort, and very well recieved by my Chinese family, but I would change a few things next time!!

Rub the meat of a skin on piece of pork belly with ginger powder, 5 spice powder, white pepper, and salt. Set up your grill for indirect and direct cooking. Cook the meat at 250 until tender then crank the heat up to about 370 and cook the meat skin side down over direct flame until the skin is crispy.

Next time, I would rub the meat the night before to let the flavors soak in, I would be a LOT more generous with the salt, and I would cook it a lot longer. My meat, at 1 hour, was done but tough. Also, my skin was still fairly chewy in most places, but also burned in others as the flames licked the meat. Open to suggestions there! Perhaps no direct flame, just crank the grill up at the end and let it do it's thing?

[ckreef]

Interesting cook. Yes crank up the temp but keep indirect would probably help keep some areas from burning.

[Ben S]

yumm... I think I just felt my cholesterol rise...

[M. Lo]

I was informed last night that the traditional thing to do is soak the meat overnight in water, then cook it. I'm kind of shooting blind here. There are no published recipes from the Pros (the meat markets of Hong Kong) and home recipes all seem to involve boiling and broiling or frying.

[Ben S]

does looking at APL recipe inspire you to try it again?

 

http://www.adamperrylang.com/recipes/crisp-and-unctious-pork-belly

[pkinetics]

I've done this a couple of times, and my dad loved the last time I did it.

 

0. Heat a pan to medium heat. Add a couple tablespoons kosher salt. As the salt heats, add whole star anise. Basically, you are releasing some of the oils from the star of anise into the salt.

 

1. Use a jaccard meat tenderizer on the skin. Poke a bunch of holes in it. I mean a lot of holes. Make a pass one direction. Make a pass the other direction. Make a pass diagonally.

 

This works best if the meat is slightly frozen, and the skin slightly thawed. Otherwise the fatty layer causes the meat to squish out under the hole stabbing portion.

 

2. Over a sink, hang / suspend / use tongs to hold the pork belly up vertically. Pour boiling hot water down the skin side. This will cause the holes in the skin to open up a little more.

 

3. Score the back of the meat about 1/4" - 1/2" deep, depending on how thick the meat is. I just do straight cuts.

 

4. Lightly season the bottom of the meat with some of the salt. It won't take much and with the scoring, that salt will really get into the meat. If you want, you can add a little 5 spice and or ginger. I typically do not season the top of the skin. I season the sides as well. Just a nice light coating.

 

5. Let dry overnight in the fridge. This will help the skin crisp.

 

6. Day of, get smoker to about 300-325 dome temp. I put a pie tin underneath to catch the fat. I'm trying to shield the sides of the meat as much as possible, keep as much of the rendered fat for somewhat self basting the bottom of the meat. 

 

7. This is probably blasphemy, but I pull from the kamado and throw it into the oven and hit the broiler. I probably use lower middle racks to keep it just far enough away from the heat so that it doesn't burn. Then off to pop pop's house with my delicious results. 

 

The rendered fat is delicious for stir frying various asian greens.

[Pullin' Pork]

I tried looking in Pinterest for a Siu yuk recipe and found a lot. This one had a couple suggestions for crisp skin: http://thewoksoflife.com/2015/03/cantonese-roast-pork-belly/

If the link does not work, try Pinterest.com and search for Siu yuk. I never tried this recipe, but yours looks so good I am looking for a source for the pork belly with skin.