Chinese pork belly

Making your own Chinese pork belly or siu yuk is sooo easy! What you need most is time and patience.

There are many ways to making roasted pork belly. My method is a combination of a couple of recipes that I’ve seen. I don’t have a rack with my oven tray, but if you do you could place the pork on this.

I use a gas oven, but a conventional oven will give you the same result. Just keep an eye on the pork and everything will be fine.

Ingredients:

2 pounds of pork belly with skin attached

1 to 1,5 liters of boiling water

Coarse sea salt

1/2 ts Chinese 5 spice powder

2 Tbs hoisin sauce

1/2 to 1 Tbs Shaoxing rice wine

Water

Prepare the pork belly the day before eating. I cut mine in 2 pieces to fit inside my tray.

Score the skin, every 1/2 inch or so, with a sharp knife. This will help release the fat and makes it easier to slice the pork. Try not to cut into the flesh part.

Put the pork on a rack over your sink and carefully pour the boiling water over the skin. You will see the skin react to the hot water and tighten up a bit. Dry the pork with paper towel.

Mix the 5 spice powder, hoisin sauce and rice wine. Put the marinade on the flesh side of the pork belly. You don’t need to use it all, just enough to cover the meat with a nice layer. Put the pork, skin up in a clean oven tray. Make sure that there is no marinade on the skin. Cover with plastic wrap and leave to marinate over night inside the fridge.

Remove the pork belly from the fridge and dab the skin with paper towel to remove any moisture.

Preheat the oven on 200C/400F and put the oven tray in the center of the oven for 45 minutes or until the skin has gone slighty brown as in the photo above. Sprinkle liberally with coarse salt. This will help draw out more moisture and fat and can be brushed off later.

Occasionally I add a bit of water to the oven tray (don’t let it touch the skin), so the marinade doesn’t burn and to keep the meat juicy.

Turn the oven down to 175C/350F and roast the meat for another hour. Keep an eye on it and add little bits of water when necessary.

To crispen up the skin some more, I turn up the oven to 210C/410F for half an hour towards the end.

Remove from the oven and let it cool for 15 to 30 minutes.

I’ve removed most of the coarse salt in this photo.

The skin is nice and crispy and the scores makes it easier to cut. If you want to cut these slices into smaller pieces, it’s easier to do so when the meat is upside down.

In spite of the reasonably long roasting, the meat turns out nice and juicy and the skin gets a nice crunch. In conventional ovens, times may differ. Give it enough time at the lowest temperature, to render the fat. Cover with tinfoil if the skin becomes to dark.

Serve with some steamed rice and stir fried vegetables. Hoisin sauce or plum sauce is ideal for dipping. Or alternatively, put it inside a steamed bun with some cucumber and green onion.

Here’s a photo of when I scored the skin more thinly. This way you can cut the meat into thinner slices.