Ingredient

Pork belly

Pork belly is layered fat and muscle under a thick skin, and it presents a genuine conflict: the meat wants long, gentle, moist heat, and the skin wants dry, fierce heat. Almost every technique for cooking belly is a way of giving each of them what it needs in turn.

The two-stage problem

Crackling forms when the skin dries out and the remaining moisture in it turns to steam and puffs the collagen structure. That needs a dry surface and high heat.

The meat below wants the opposite: several hours at a low temperature so the fat renders and the connective tissue softens. Do that in a humid oven and the skin stays leathery; do it dry and fast and the meat is tough.

So the standard answer is two stages — long and low first, then a blast of high heat at the end, or the reverse. Which order you use is largely a matter of preference, though finishing hot is easier to judge.

Slow-roast belly with crackling

1. Score the skin in close parallel lines, cutting through the skin and just into the fat but not into the meat.
2. Dry the skin thoroughly. Leave it uncovered in the fridge overnight if you can — this does more for crackling than anything else.
3. Rub salt into the scored skin just before cooking. Wipe off any moisture it draws out.
4. Roast hot for twenty to thirty minutes to start the skin, then drop the oven low and give it two and a half to three hours.
5. If the skin has not crisped by the end, turn the oven up hard for the last fifteen minutes and watch it constantly.
6. Rest the meat, and rest the crackling separately on a rack so it does not soften in the steam.
7. Cut with a heavy knife or kitchen shears, skin side down, which is far easier than sawing from the top.

Other things to do with it

• Braised in soy, ginger, star anise and sugar, the Chinese red-braised belly, where the skin is meant to be soft and gelatinous rather than crisp.
• Siu yuk, Cantonese roast pork, where the skin is treated with vinegar and salt and becomes glassy and bubbled.
• Porchetta, boned, rolled around herbs and garlic, and roasted.
• Cut into strips and confited in its own fat, then crisped to order.
• Simmered then pressed and cut into cubes, chilled, and fried — a restaurant approach that works at home.
• Cured into streaky bacon or pancetta, which is what most belly becomes commercially. Curing quantities are a food-safety matter and the Food Standards Agency is the authority.
• Minced with the fat for sausages, meatballs or a terrine.

Buying it

Skin on

Essential unless you specifically want a braise with soft skin. Ask for it if the supermarket has removed it.

Bone in or out

Ribs left in give more flavour and make carving harder. Boned rolls better.

Thickness

A thick belly with distinct layers is better than a thin one. Very thin belly dries out before the fat renders.

Scoring

A butcher will score it. If doing it yourself, a very sharp blade or a clean utility knife is far easier than a kitchen knife.

Fat to meat

Look for clear alternating bands. A belly that is mostly fat will render away to very little.

Common questions