How to Make the Crispiest Pork Belly Ever

Crispy

pork

belly

is a restaurant dish that has received a lot of attention in recent years and for good reason it contains alternating layers of buttery fat from well-marbled meat and is covered with a piece of skin so that when thoroughly cooked it is pure

pork

heaven and in fact it's become so popular that you can now find pork

belly

in your local supermarket so today Dan is going to show us how to cook it at home so I think properly cooked is the key element here , there are many things. that can go wrong with this cut if you do it right, great, but there's a ton of collagen, the skin can be a little tough, so a lot of this starts with purchasing pork belly.

Well, then, what we're going to see now. There are two different cuts here, so this is a center cut piece of pork belly, which is exactly what we want. It's three pounds. Here is a cut that is not from the center, so it could be anywhere else on the belly. The problem here is this would

make

good bacon right, it's got a ton of fat and you're going to get a lot of that out, there's barely any meat to it so we really want that balance and you can see beautiful alternating layers of fat and meat here and that's ideal. . you want a perfect ratio of both so it's important to keep in mind that you know this is the cut that we get the bacon from and we're going to do a couple of things that are along the lines of bacon so we're I'm going to season it well to This guy is three pounds and about an inch and a half thick, which is perfect, so I'm going to cut him into three pieces.

We want a very sharp knife for this entire recipe here, so I'm going to break it down. We're going to cut it into a few pieces and we're going to score it so it's really easy when it comes time to serve, so I'm going to

make

quarter inch deep cuts

ever

y half inch and make these really perfect little slices that will make cutting later be really easy so you can I want a really sharp knife for this and you're just cutting back and forth very gently to get through the skin, but not exactly that far. Yeah, we just want to get to a quarter of an inch deep, ah, so that's one serving size.

Yeah, exactly, I bet that also helps the fat come off exactly, so one of our big challenges is going to be getting the skin nice and crispy, so being able to go in there with a little bit of hot oil is I'm going. to get all that skin crispy instead of just the top, okay, that's the last one there, so now we're going to season it a little bit, so I'm going to put the skin side down and let's treat it. the skin of the meat a little bit different because in the end we're going to try to make the skin puff up, we don't want anything but salt, so I'm going to season the meat side here with a combination of two tablespoons of salt and two tablespoons of dark brown sugar, well you mentioned a little bacon and this certainly looks like a little bacon with the sugar.

There's something between pork and sweet that goes together so well that you see it all over the world, so I. I'm going to take advantage of that here too, okay, that's good and combined, I'm going to put it all over the pulp, so that's the top here and then also the sides, the salt and the sugar will help season it, they will also help it Retain moisture while cooking. You are very careful not to let any of that mixture come into contact with your skin. That's right, I'm going to pull it up and we're going to transfer it here so if the sugar gets on the skin and then we're going to cook it on high heat later it's going to burn, so we're being very careful here, so we don't want to sugar on the skin because it could burn, but we want a little salt that will help. draws out moisture, so this is half a kosher teaspoon per strip.

Here what we're really trying to do is put a layer of pork rind on top of this pork, so we want to dry them out so we know roughly. 10 humidity in there also salt will help okay so now this is going to go in the refrigerator uncovered because we want more of a drying and dehydrating effect on the outside for about 12 to 24 hours okay so the pork is out of the fridge. it was there for 12 hours, you can go up to 24 and you can see that the skin has dried really well, so that's good, we're going to continue drying in the oven, so I have that preheat right now at 250 degrees.

While that's happening, let's make a sauce for this, okay, this is inspired by a kind of South Carolina mustard barbecue sauce that I love, so this is two-thirds of a cup of Dijon and then one-third of a cup of apple cider vinegar. I also have a quarter cup of dark brown sugar, a tablespoon of hot sauce mmm, more vinegar, a little bit of hot pepper and a teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce, so this has a little bit of acidity too, but it's really about that umami which has a really tasty quality. anchovies in there to get that so this is a super simple sauce you literally whisk it all together.

I love it, so I'm going to put this aside. Bring our pork. I'm going to transfer this to the grid. Here I have We added a little bit of cooking spray so the meat doesn't stick, so we're going to roast this very low and slow, at 250 degrees for about three to three and a half hours, so low and slow. the reason is that we're basically looking at three big chunks of collagen, so we don't simmer it, we don't turn that collagen into gelatin, it doesn't tenderize the meat and the fat and it doesn't soften the skin enough so that it can then swell and create that beautiful crispy skin okay they've been there about three and a half hours and they should be 195 degrees and right there 196 I'll take it so I'll transfer them to this. plate here, we're actually going to use the fat that's underneath, so I'm just going to pour it into this measuring cup, ooh, liquid gold, right there, so the final step for this is to get the skin nice and crispy and that needs It happens pretty quickly, we don't need to fry it, we can fry it.

We're going to use about a cup of oil in that pan, so I've got a really good amount, about three quarters of a cup, it's that beautiful. pork fat and I'm just going to add a little bit of vegetable oil to a cup that's perfect and transfer it here to my 12 inch skillet. There's so many things I want to fry in that pork fat right now, okay, so I'm going to transfer this skin skin side down before I heat it up so it's this kind of magical moment when

ever

ything heats up and the moisture turns into steam and it expands and you don't want it to happen just on the surface because it swells and the bottom doesn't.

It doesn't cook well all at once, so we're going to put this on medium heat and it's going to take a little bit of time, but we're going to start to see some little bubbles forming in there, which is a great sign that I'm We're going to start to tilt. pan from time to time to even things out, we're going to fry for about six to ten minutes and you're going to see a really dramatic transformation, okay, and just on the skin side we're not going to fry any other parts. everything else is ready and beautiful, this will taste nice, bacony and sweet, so we'll just focus on the skin, okay, I'm going to look, okay, so I can see it's starting to puff up on the sides , it's like going up a little. get it a good height and turn it over, that's perfect, beautiful, turn off the heat and transfer them to this cutting board.

That's exactly what you want. See tons of little balls all over the top that will be incredibly crunchy. Oh my goodness this smell is out of this world so it looks fantastic. We're going to let it sit for a few minutes and then we're going to dig in, so Dan mentioned that we try to get that skin crispy in a hot oven. and also under the broiler, but it didn't work, the only way to make it crispy was to use hot oil. Now let's take a look at what's going on there, even though it's been in the oven for a few hours, our pork skin still contains water.

At this point, when the pork skin is fried in oil at a high enough temperature, heat is applied directly to the skin so that the water inside turns into steam, expands rapidly and escapes, leaving pockets behind the net. of proteins that retained water and is forced to expand. That steam escapes and then becomes rigid, resulting in a crispy web filled with air bubbles that puffs and crisps the pork skin. Pork skin will also dry out in the oven, but not quickly enough to puff up that protein network that turns into a crispy crust. instead, it just dries out and becomes chewy and that's why frying in oil is key to getting that perfectly crispy pork skin, so I'm going to remove them and work on just one at a time because we made them cute. marking marks before obviously helps the skin crisp up, but it will make cutting very easy, so I like to turn it on its side like this and then you have that as a guide.

Did you hear that pop? Yeah, so you'll just follow that. right down and drop it look at that hello that's beautiful dan what do you think I'm speechless actually can I give you some sauce yes please okay I'm just going to go over just the meat here okay? I'm going in, I'm not going to hesitate, I'm going straight for the skin, go for it, there was nothing like that flavor, unlike bacon which is really smoky and delicious, it's all about the flavor of the pork and that crunch is just oh, I mean, the fat can get really crispy in a roast, but the skin is next level, yeah, it's so rich you need all that vinegar and the hot sauce, everything in there to balance it out. , that sauce is delicious, good, I think the meat takes on a lot of sweetness and the salt from the dressing thanks for showing me how to make this a pleasure, so if you want to make this and trust me, you really want to start by buying a piece of three pounds of pork belly cut in the center then cut the pork into three strips make shallow cuts crosswise through the skin rub the meat with a mixture of salt and brown sugar and season the skin with only salt refrigerate it overnight uncovered and then roast in a 250 degree oven using the rendered pork fat fry the skin until golden and crispy then let it cool for five minutes before serving it with a spicy mustard sauce from the test kitchen to your kitchen .

A great new recipe for slow roasted crispy pork belly. You better slow down. I know this is rich, but it tastes really good. I don't want to stop, I know I'm with you, thank you for watching America's Test Kitchen. How about? Well, leave a comment and tell us what recipes you're excited to make or just say hi, you might find them. links to today's recipes and reviews in the video description and don't forget to subscribe to our channel see you later, see you later