Chinese Crispy Pork Belly

Prep Time
20 minutes
Cooking Time
1 hr 30 mins
Total Time
1hr 50 mins

Ingredients:

 800-1.2kg/ 1.6-2.4 lb pork belly, skin on

 1 ½ tbsp. Chinese cooking wine
 1 tsp. Chinese five spice powder
 1 tsp white pepper
 1 tsp salt
 1 tbsp white vinegar (helps conduct heat evenly)
 200g / 7oz rock salt

Instructions:

Proper Chinese Method: Puffy Crispy Crackling

1. Use an ice pick, sharp metal skewer or another tool to prick tons and tons of holes in the
skin. (Note 1)
2. Turn the pork belly upside down. Rub the flesh (not the skin) with Chinese cooking
wine, dribbling it on gradually.
3. Sprinkle over five spice powder, salt and pepper. Rub all over flesh (not on skin).
4. Turn right side up and place in a container. Dab skin dry with paper towels. Refrigerate
uncovered for 12 hours (max of 24 hours).
5. Preheat oven to 180C/350F (all oven types)
6. Remove pork from fridge. Place onto a large sheet of foil. Fold up sides of foil around
the pork to enclose it snugly with a 1.5cm / 2/5” rim above the pork skin (to hold salt in).
7. Transfer pork to baking tray. Dab skin with paper towels.
8. Brush skin with vinegar.
9. Spread rock salt on the skin (the foil edges will stop it from falling down the sides).
10. Roast for over 60 minutes.
11. Remove pork from oven and transfer onto work surface.
12. Switch to grill/ broiler on medium high. Move shelf so it is at least 25cm/ 10” from the
heat source.
13. Fold down foil and scrape all the salt off the top and sides. Return pork only (i.e. discard
foil) to baking tray.
 14. Place under grill/ broiler for 20-25 minutes, rotating tray once, until skin is golden, crispy
and puffed. (Note 2)

Easy Method: Super Crispy But Not Puffy Crackling

1. For this method. 1 cup table salt (enough to cover skin about 3-5 mm /1/8 -1/5” thick)
can be used. (Note6)
2. Skip the skin pricking but follow same steps up to scraping off the salt.
3. Instead of flicking to grill/ broiler, turn the oven up to 240C/ 465F.
4. Place pork on a rack and return to baking tray.
5. Roast for a further 30 minutes or until cracking is golden and crispy.

To Serve:
1. Remove pork onto cutting board. Slice into 1-1.5cm /2/5-3/5 thick slice, then into
smaller slices or into squares.
2. Serve with ordinary mustard – not spicy, not Dijon, just ordinary American or other
yellow mustard. Sometimes it is served with white sugar on the side too – I don’t use
this.

Recipe Notes

1. If you pierce the fat (too much a a bit is ok) or skin, then after you remove the salt crust
and place it under the grill/ broiler, juice will bubble up onto the skin and prevent the
skin from getting crispy. It’s not the end of the world if you have a handful of pricks that
went too deep, you will just get tiny splotches or little strips of crackling that’s not 100%
crispy.
2. Ensure the pork isn’t too close to the heat source. That’s the key to an even golden
crackling, rather than burnt splotches here and there. The further away it is, the better!
3. Pork belly is very rich. Having said that though, be aware that it shrinks almost 30% after
cooking. So a 1 kg / 2 lb pork belly will end up being around 700g /1.4lb. For me, that
serves 6-8 people as part of a multi course meal or as a starter. I don’t serve pork belly
as a main because I find it too rich.
4. STORING / MAKE AHEAD: Crackling this good stays crisp even once cooled and
refrigerated. But despite what you may think, it doesn’t REHEAT crispy. I’ve even read
forums where Chef’s grapple with this problem! The meat itself reheats beautifully, and
in fact, cold pork belly meat is not very nice in my opinion because the fat becomes
rubbery. So what I do is separate the meat from the crackling then reheat the meat only
and let the crackling come to room temperature. It’s super satisfying! PS The other chef
trick is to prepare the meat separate from the skin and make the skin just before serving,
but you can’t do that with this recipe. The Chines BBQ Stores keep the pork warm i.e. it
doesn’t cool down.
5. Serving: Because it is so rich, serve in either small bite size pieces or small slices.
Typically, it’s served with yellow mustard and sometimes white sugar. Serve with some
 slices of cucumber and radish and/or red cabbage for freshness. Makes a lovely platter
to share or individual starters, or for a multi course meal.
6. Table salt can be used for the Easy Method but you need to ensure the foil is extra snug
to stop it from falling down the sides and/or don’t cover pork all the way to the edges. If
table salt is used for the Proper Method, you will find that the pork is too salty as it will
penetrate into the holes.
7. Recipe created / adapted from numerous sources over the years, including but not
limited to: Woks of Life, Chinese Crisp Pork by Garden Time (this is my main reference
point for the traditional method), a Gordon Ramsay cooking show (can’t remember
which one!), this pork belly recipe by Kirbies Cravings.
8. Nutrition per serving, assuming 8 servings

Chinese Crispy Pork Belly nutrition estimate. This one is very hard to calculate because of
the enormous amount of fat / juices that is discarded.

NUTRITION FACTS
Serving Size 88g
Amount Per Serving
Calories 339 Calories from Fat 295
% Daily Value
Total Fat 32.8g 50%
Saturated Fat 10.9g 55g%
Trans Fat 0.0g
Cholesterol 88mg 29%
Sodium 383mg 16%
Potassium 0mg 0%
Total Carbohydrates 0.0g 0%
Protein 21.9g
Nutrition Grade F
*Based on a 2000 calorie diet

*www.recipetineats.com