Pork Belly -- Chinese dish with pictures

Epicurean Exploits - Food and Recipes
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While I strongly suspect that nobody here may care …

I’m making a Chinese pork belly dish that is made in the first few minutes of the Chinese film, “Eat Drink Man Woman.”

Pork belly is essentially bacon, earlier.

Here is a little website showing how it has gone so far.

Pork belly raw, blanched, marinated, and deep fried.

http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~molbio/pork.html

Pork belly is some pretty interesting stuff. The best single prep I ever had was a dish by Shola in Philadelphia, who had done a long “sous vide” cooking and then scorched the heck out of it to brown it. The serving was about 3 bites but it was heaven.

This dish involves slicing the long strips of pork belly into “mah jongg tiles” and then mixing with sauce, putting in a bowl, and steaming for a long time. You can see all of this in the first 3 minutes of “Eat Drink” which I very highly recommend. The sauce has “mui choy” and garlic. “Mui choy” is a mustard green which is dried and salted and preserved along with a handful of dirt (evidently). So if you can find it at all (you will need someone Chinese to help you find it) you will have to wash it repeatedly and soak it to get rid of the excess salt and dirt. But greens go with pork and I expect they will in this case as well. Even if they aren’t “green” any more.

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You may underestimate our total geeky weirdness. [soap.gif] [pillow-fight.gif]

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Nancy, I will admit that I was NOT wearing a cowboy hat as I cooked.

That seems to amount to two strikes here

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If you put pork belly or bacon in the title of the thread then I care. [thumbs-up.gif]

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Thanks Paul.

A lot of people have not tried cooking pork belly – it’s hard to find in normal grocery stores, and I mainly see it at Asian markets. I know I have bought it in the past – I think I made a recipe for Pork Rillettes which was a mixture of pork “butt” (shoulder) and pork belly, cooked tender and then shredded with forks. Around here I also have to go to the Asian store to find pork butts.

Pork belly has the same problem as bacon – it’s too fatty (and thus too delicious). Converting pork belly into bacon actually involves a cooking step. Bacon has already been cooked, a little.

F

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I thought bacon was cured and smoked pork belly. On the ‘other board’ a couple years ago, Christine Huang & I posted recipes for pork belly, after I had gotten some from Niman Ranch. I have cooked it off and on since then, with various recipes. I still have a piece in the freezer, that I’ll probably prepare this winter.

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Hi Dick

The conversion to bacon is something I’ve never done. I googled around and of course you are right. Maybe I (or someone) got confused between cold smoking and hot smoking.

I think I remember those conversations elsewhere, that is probably why I first went out and searched for pork belly some years back.

Thanks for the comment.

F

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Here are 4 pork belly strips after being blanched, marinated, and deep fried

Then they are made into thin-ish slices

And put into a bowl with preserved cabbage/mustard greens

The concept of long steaming in a bowl allows the juices to become richer and more concentrated instead of being diluted into the surrounding liquid of a soup or stew. And the presentation is to invert the bowl onto a platter making a round dome of meat. I made patterns with the “tiles” as I was lining the bowl and this ought to show up when the dish is unmolded.

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Frank, Looks delicious. [welldone.gif]
Once at a dim sum restaurant I ordered pork bellies, but the really nasty kind that’s white. This was only possible by pointing since my Cantonese is minimal. The server was reticent. The MD came over and said I could only get it if I knew what it was. I did and got the dish!
Still, that’s nothing to the time I got bbq pork intestines.

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Wow! They look good.

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Last year I had pork belly Benedict at a local “touristy” resto on the beach in Del Mar. Pork belly with an ocean view was not difficult to experience. In such surroundings, who cares if the resto is a tourist or non-foody destination and does not have a “star?”

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i’m a fan of slow cooking pork belly so the meat just falls apart on the fork. I did a recipe on my blog. It was magnificent! (chinese style)

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Charlie, in my first message I mentioned that Shola Olunloyo in Phila. did a great sous-vide prep. What you describe, falling apart – pretty much describes the ultra tender texture of what he served. Amazing stuff. This pork is tender too, remember it is like a 2 hour steaming which pretty much amounts to a long slow-cooking. Stewing in its own juices.

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I would be hard pressed to believe there is a better version of pork belly than the one at Tasty China . . .

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John, can you describe what they do with it at Tasty China?

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I did ‘Eat Drink Man Woman’ a bunch of years ago for a charity dinner. Lots of fun. The main thing I remember now was subbing fresh corn for the crab/corn dish as the tinned ears that I could get looked good, but didn’t taste good. Might have pics, but not looking near as good as yours. Well done.

I am actually tired of soft food. Pork belly, short ribs, etc - all slow-cooked or sous-vided to the point of baby food. Give me some chew! I recently made pork belly where I slow cooked it, pressed it when it was cooling and then crisped it at service. Chewier, but more enjoyable for having a texture that lingered rather than dissolved.

A.

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Finished dish. Very popular at the party tonight.

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Congrats Frank, that looks fantastic!

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Frank…it’s like got personally fried it himself.

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Frank beautiful dish.
the best thread on Siu Yook is here Siu Yook (Roast Pork Belly) - China: Cooking & Baking - eGullet Forums