March 26, 2007
Home Made Roast Pork
When I go to Ranch 99, I will buy some Roast Duck and sometimes if I am lazy to make my own Char Siew (BBQ Pork), I buy some there too, to make Yang Zhou Chow Fun.
The other item I find goes well with Char Siew is Roast Pork (烧肉). Unfortunately, the Roast Pork at Ranch 99 has skin that is too hard.
Recently, PabloPabla posted his Chinese Roast Pork recipe and I got tempted to make some too, although I did not have course salt (or sea salt) or red fermented bean curd, as in Babe In The City’s Roast Pork recipe.
Being in the experimental mood, I thought: “Heck with those 2 ingredients! Let’s see the result without them!”
The end result was good. I am sure the red fermented bean curd would have made this dish more authentic, but I can’t think of any other dish I can use the red fermented bean curd for, so I was not willing to “invest” in a bottle. :) If you know of other dishes I can cook with that, please do let me know!
Ingredients (Serves 2):
- 1/2 lb roast pork belly
- 1 tbsp salt (I only had fine salt)
- 1 tbsp five spice powder (or enough to coat the pork belly)
Method:
1. Rub pork belly meat and fats with salt and five spice powder.
2. Rub pork belly skin with a layer of salt.
3. Allow to marinate for at least 30 mins.
4. Preheat oven to 450F and bake marinated pork belly (skin side up) for about 20 mins.
5. Remove from oven, allow pork belly to rest for about 5 mins. Scrape off the layer of crystalized salt on the skin surface, then using a fork, prick all over the surface of the pork belly skin. This is to allow the oil to ooze out and bubble, creating that familiar Roast Pork look and texture.
6. Place pork belly (skin side up) back to the oven and continue to roast at 450F for another 20-30 mins.
7. When skin is nice and crispy, remove from oven, allow to rest for 10 mins then cut the pork into bite sized pieces and serve.
Cook’s notes:
1. Five spice powder have a very strong smell, so if used excessively, the smell may be too overpowering for some people, so just use enough to coat the pork belly meat and fats.
2. A friend told me there exists a specific instrument used for pricking the pork belly skin. It’s like a block of something with very sharp spikes. I didn’t have that, so using a hardy fork worked for me as well, just that I had to do more poking into the pork belly skin.
3. When the pork belly skin is “bubbling”, there will be oil splatter on the sides and door of the oven, so do not panic when that happens. Just be prepared for some cleaning up after that!
Roast Pork - goes well with rice and instant noodles and for leftovers, I added them to my Fried Hokkien Prawn Mee (stay tuned!)
Bite This!
More recipes:
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Stir Fried Pork With Button Mushrooms
If I DID IT - It’d be Pork and Mushroom Spaghetti - Chinese style
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March 26th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
Well done! I’m sure you enjoyed the crispy bits :)
March 26th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
one of my fav! i can just eat and eat this stuff! LOL…
March 26th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
So that’s what course salt is. I could not find it in the store when I was looking for the ingredients for my pizza.
March 27th, 2007 at 1:42 am
Looks yummy and so easy! Coarse salt, b/c of the bigger grains, makes it easier to wipe off afterward. Is red fermented bean curd that different from normal bean curd? Or you mean the kind with chili? I eat mine with rice porridge or stir-fry with ong choy. It keeps forever though so it’s OK if you don’t cook it all at once.
March 27th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
PP - Yes of course! *crunch crunch*
KM - Look out for the cholesterol level!!
DF - Course salt can also be Kosher salt. The food network chefs seem to prefer to use Kosher salt (as opposed to fine/iodized salt) becos of its texture and becos they can “gather” more salt in one pinch.
Chopsticks - Arr… that makes sense then… but then hor… my fine salt also crystalized and was pretty easy to scrape off. I actually dunno what is red fermented bean curd. I saw red dates fermented bean curd in the supermarket. normal fermented bean curd is beigey in color ya? I don’t think I want to eat that on its own… the smell is too strong for me. Ya.. I did see vegetable stir fry recipes using fermented bean curd. I may experiment with that one day. :)
March 30th, 2007 at 6:54 am
Your roast pork looks so yummy!!! My hubby loves it. I’ll try making it with your recipe. Thanks.
June 28th, 2007 at 1:10 am
your roast pork really looks great. I must say the skin is evenly crackled. I have tried doing this a few times, but somehow the crackling is uneven.
how do i get it right?
June 28th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
Hi simplysedap, I just used a fork to poke the skin. Poke poke poke!
July 3rd, 2007 at 7:34 pm
Hi Yich, thanks for the feedback. Ok I will try your recipe and poke poke and poke! But is a fork really sharp enough? I will try nevertheless. What I did before was to poke when the meat was raw and just purchased. After poking then i dry it in the fridge. Maybe that is not a good idea?
July 3rd, 2007 at 9:56 pm
Hi simplysedap, you need to bake marinated pork belly (skin side up) for about 20 mins first before poking, becos when raw, it’s very difficult to poke properly (raw meat is very chewy). A fork should be good enough, just that you need to poke more times since the fork only has four prongs. Let me know how this works out :)
August 5th, 2007 at 4:15 am
Hi Yich, Congratulations. Did I read that you just had a baby?
Anyway, I would like to give you feedback on my attempt.
You probably laugh. i put the pork in the fridge overnight to dry the skin out and I followed your method rubbing with salt and then baked it and subsequently take away the salt and poke holes with my folk. By 30 mins when i opened it, the pork skin looked crispy and at the centre of the pork was a huge bubble which looks like a crater and ready to burst. I poke the skin all round including the crater and baked it again. then the crater burst but the overall skin ws really crunchy. Hope to do better next time. thanks.
August 6th, 2007 at 8:54 am
hellooo… thanks! :) Yay to the crunchy crispy skin! Glad it turned out well for you.
December 4th, 2007 at 1:29 am
Deep fried pork rib with shanghainese bean curd aka 南乳
700 gm pork rib
4 pieces shanghainess bean curd
4 tbsp corn flour
3 tbsp water
2 tbsp sauce from shanghainese bean curd
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp Chinese cooking wine
1/2 tbsp soya sauce
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp garlic powder or garlic paste
1 egg
Oil for frying
How to do it.
Marinated all seasoning overnight, fry and serve
May 3rd, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Thanks for sharing this recipe. We just did a pork belly that used your recipe.
Thanks again.