oven roasted spiced pork belly with an Asian style coleslaw

With a crunchy crackling and a deliciously soft and tender… well… under belly, pork belly is awesome! When I began researching how to cook it, in particular how to get that wonderful crackling, I was amazed at how many methods there are and how much they differ. Some call for the belly to be cooked skin side down to begin with, some skin side up for the whole process. Others recommend blasting it with heat as soon as it goes in the oven whilst others hit it with the heat at the end of the cook. All told, there seems to be a range of methods for achieving a golden and crisp crackling.

One constant throughout all the recipes I read was the importance of letting the skin dry out. Any moisture left in the skin will make it very difficult to crackle up. This process isn’t unique to pork belly in particular, it should be followed when trying to cook any cut of pork conducive to crackling.

When purchasing your pork belly look for the one with the most even thickness. The belly tends to warp a little when cooking so if you have an uneven cut the thicker section will warp and rise higher than the other parts and potentially burn.

ingredients

• pork belly, approximately 1.25kg
• kosher salt
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground fennel
• 1/2 tsp 5 spice powder
• 1 tbsp coconut aminos (you could also use soy sauce)
• 1 1/2 tbsp sesame oil

directions

1. Score the flesh side (or underside) at 3cm intervals and at 1 cm deep.
2. Combine the cumin, fennel and 5 spice powder and coconut aminos and rub over the flesh and into the cuts.
3. Flip the belly over so the skin is facing up and score in a cross-hatch pattern at 2cm intervals. If you don’t have a sharp knife at home then ask your butcher to do it for you.
4. Sprinkle 1 tbsp of the salt over the skin and then massage into the cuts.
5. Put the belly on a wire rack and place inside a large oven roasting tray lined with baking paper. Leave in the fridge uncovered overnight.
6. The next day preheat the oven to 160f/320f.
7. Pour over the sesame oil along with another 2 tsp of salt and massage into the skin.
8. Roast for 1 1/2 hours.
9. Increase the oven temperature 220c/430f and roast until the crackling forms all over the belly, approximately half an hour. The internal temperature of the belly should be 71c/160f.
10. Cover and rest for at least 20 minutes.

If the internal temperature of the meat has reached 71c/160f and the crackling hasn’t developed as much as you’d like don’t worry. Pork is a very forgiving cut of meat so if you have to cook it a little longer it will be fine. Alternatively, you could cut the crackling off and return it to the oven until you are happy with the crackling.

We served the pork belly with our Asian Style Coleslaw. We also turned it into a cheeky pork belly burger with our Maple Lime Aioli.

You can also have a look at our Barbecue Pork Belly.