It's that time of the year again where I make my infamous roasted crispy pork. Around this time last year, I started to pick up cooking and my first ever dish was this recipe. A roasted crispy pork or how we Malaysians love to call it, siew yoke which means burned meat.
It's very simple to make and there are tons of recipe online, each having its own modified ways or recipe. The recipe itself is pretty versatile but one thing you can't avoid is the one day marination period and the 2 hours roasting. Yes, it's a long process so you better be prepping the day before.
Ingredients
- 1.2kg of pork belly with 2 inch thickness
- 1 tblespn chinese five spice powder
- 1 tblespn Chinese cooking wine
- 1 tblespn of fine salt
- 1 tblespn of coarse salt
- 1/2 tblespn of black pepper or white pepper
- 1 tblespn of garlic powder
- 1 tblespn of onion powder
- 1/2 tblespn of baking powder
Prepping the Pork
If you have bought the pork earlier, remember to put it in the freezer. When you want to start prepping, make sure you bring it up to the fridge a day before.
It's marination day. This is the part where you need to score the meat and apply marination. This part is vital and essential to removing the water in the skin. We want the skin to be as dry as possible because that's when it will crackle and blister.
If you have a meat tenderizer, you make start poking the skin with holes. Do this generously, this is to allow the water to evaporate making the skin dry. If you do not have a tenderizer, you can score lightly on the skin. Do not score too deep as you will bruise the meat.
After when you're done scoring the skin, flip it over to score the meat. These scoring can be deeper so that when we put the marination on, it can go deep into the meat. Try not to score until you reach the skin though.
After you're done scoring, it's time to rub on the marination to the meat. Do not rub the marination on the skin as we want that part as dry as possible.
Add 1 tblespn of five spice powder, fine salt, black pepper and garlic powder into a bowl. Add in 1 tablespoon of Chinese cooking wine as well and stir it up. Once mixed, rub the meat generouly and into the scoring deep into the meat. Make sure u get the sides too.
Once done, flip it over and now we will start the skin drying process.
First, put 1/2 tblespn of baking powder on to the skin, rub it in the scoring. This will help make the skin dry. After that, rub the coarse salt on to the skin. At this moment, you will notice some of the moisture starting to form on the skin. Use a paper towel to wipe the moisture away. This process will be repeated over the course of the whole cooking.
And then you're done! Drop it into the fridge for one day.
_
Roasting the pork
It's time to roast the pork. Now before you do that, remove all the salt on the skin from the marination. Wipe the skin again to make sure it's clean and dry. By now, it will be hardened from the drying which is good. This will ensure the skin crackle and crisp.
Take an aluminum foil and create a basket around the pork. This is for the first stage of roasting.
After you wrap it with aluminum foil as shown in the photo, rub white vinegar on the skin. This will help the skin blister more as it is sour. Then we want to cover the skin fully with salt. Gently spread the salt and do not rub it in. Don't worry, the skin will not be too salty. We just need the salt to suck up the excess moisture as we are roasting it.
Then it's into the oven for 1 hour at 400F on roast.
After an hour, take the pork out. You want to remove the salt on top, wipe it dry and remove the aluminum foil.
This time, we want to just rub white vinegar on it one more time before we send it back into the oven for broil.
Drop it into the oven and broil for 40 minutes at 440F. This is where the magic happens. The crackling of the skin. The best part of this recipe. You can wipe the skin from oil from time to time to keep it dry. The dryer the better.
The Roasted Pork
Summary
- Score the skin and meat
- Marinate one day before
- Next day, remove coarse salt and baking powder on skin. Wipe skin dry. The dryer the better.
- Wrap aluminum foil around pork and add white vinegar and fine salt on skin.
- Roast for 1 hour at 400F.
- Remove salt and aluminum foil. Wipe skin dry.
- Rub white vinegar on skin again.
- Broil for 40 minutes or until dry and golden brown at 440F.
- Serve and eat.
There you have it. A Christmas Roasted Pork. It turned out really well and goes well with sour plum sauces or BBQ sauce. Try it and let me know if you've succeeded!
Have a blessed Christmas everyone.
Geng!
Can’t wait to try it!
Char siu next!!!!!🦾
Hahaha yea, I should try char siew next. Was thinking lobster next.
I am going to give this a go. Happy Christmas!
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Merry Christmas. Let me know if you've done it!
This looks absolutely incredible. I had to bookmark this! I can't wait to try this. Merry Christmas.
Do try and let me know! Merry Christmas man
U have definitely mastered the art of siew yoke.
When I come back, I want to organise a pot luck party and you're bringing a whole tray over and this ain't a request :)
Okays ons! I'll make you the siew yoke... :D
Other than having eaten "bacon" in the past, I've never had "pork belly" nor have I ever known anyone who has prepared it. I remember your posts about it in the past, but this year, two people in my Feed have prepared it for the holidays! You might be interested in reading the other post by @silversaver888 whom I know from the SilverGoldStackers (precious metals collectors) community:
https://ecency.com/hive-124452/@silversaver888/roasted-pork-belly-lechon-liempo
That looks really awesome and tasty! It also reminds me a lot of how we do crispy pork belly in Denmark, except the scoring before the crisping is done in long thin strips. Instead of plum sauce, we have a kind of apple and prune compote... which also is a sweet to go with the salty.
Yum!
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