Pure pork flavor. That sums up this dish. The underside of a pig is like a slab of fat with a little meat running through it. It's the place where bacon starts its wonderful journey on becoming bacon. But, in its raw, uncured state it's basically a layer of skin, then fat, meat, fat, meat and so on. The trick is to get the fat to render out and to be left with a rich bite of porky goodness. That's definitely a job for braising. I trimmed a whole belly into some good size square chunks. I seared the belly pieces in my Dutch oven with the skin still on. I removed the pork, then added some aromatics. After I sweated them down I added my braising liquid, added the bellies back into the pot and covered. I braised this in a low oven for about 3 hours. After that time I was able to separate the skin from the belly. While I let the pork rest I made some cracklings out of the skin. Deep fried, of course! After the bellies rested I scored the layer of fat that was under the skin, and placed them under the broiler. This is a pig lovers cut of meat. It's rich, fatty, and bold. It has an intense pork flavor that will leave you wanting more and more. You'll never buy pork loin again...
2 comments:
Oh my god, that looks delicious. Thank you for the photo!
I hate you.
Post a Comment