Canape 101: Pork Belly

Pork belly. mmmmm. How I love thee.

Pork belly (also known as bacon when smoked) is truly one of the wonderful cuts from the pig. Curing it and then finishing as confit is truly amazing. Prepared properly it will just melt in your mouth, leaving nothing but a smile.

This recipe requires a few days of patience but is well worth it. Not a dish you whip up at the last minute. Try to start 5 days before you want to serve it. IF you can leave the finished product longer in the duck fat, all the better. The flavours will deepen and concentrate giving you even more porky goodness with time.

A whole pork belly is a large and cumbersome thing for the home cook. Have your butcher prepare you a half or even a quarter belly for this recipe.

1/4 pork belly
2 cups salt
5 tbsp sugar
2 heads garlic cut in half
3 bay leaves
4 tbsp black pepper whole
1 tbsp smoked paprika
1 tbsp cumin and coriander

Mix all ingredients in a bowl to combine. Rub all over pork belly and cover in a suitable container. Leave in the fridge for 48 hours.
Remove and rinse off all seasonings. Dry well with paper towel.
Use a pot or pan that will just hold the belly and be tall enough to completely submerge. Remember the larger the pot/pan the more duck fat you will require to submerge the belly.
Generally for a 1/4 belly I would use about 4 cups or so duck fat.
Oven should be heated to 200 degrees.
Cook belly making sure it is completely submerge for 3-4 hours, or until very tender.
Remove from oven and allow to cool.
Before the fat starts to reset, remove belly to a sheet pan.
Cover with plastic wrap and top with another pan and weight down with several cans of whatever in your kitchen. Leave in the fridge over night.
Once compressed you can slice into 1.5" wide strips.
At this point I remove the skin layer, leaving a nice creamy white layer of fat on top.
Preheat a cast iron pan to medium and place the belly fat side down in the pan.
Cook until you have a nice brown crust on the top.
Turn and sear the other sides, but not as long as the top.
Remove to a cutting board a cut into nice bite sized cubes.

The belly can be kept submerged in the duck fat in the fridge for several weeks.

Daikon and apple slaw
1 cup daikon (asian radish) julienned
1 cup green apple julienned
1 clove garlic minced
1" piece of ginger minced
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp lime juice

Allow all ingredients to marinate in the fridge for 1 hour.
Remove and strain the liquid.
Mix in a bowl with:

1 tbsp cilantro finely chopped
2 tsp finely chopped chives
Salt and pepper to taste

Maple BBQ sauce frosting
This one requires a ittle bit of ingredient sourcing. So we will do an abbreviated version. For our original we use a starch called Ultra-Tex3. It is a fantastic starch that can absorb a huge amount of liquid. Fantastic for making sauce or even puddings as in this sauce. Without ultra tex we can use cornstarch and cooking down our BBQ sauce.
In the kitchen we make our own BBQ sauce base, but I would suggest you use a sauce you already like.

1 cup BBQ sauce
4 tbsp maple syrup
6 tbsp cornstarch mixed with 6 tbsp water

Mix BBQ sauce and maple syrup in a small sauce pan and reduce by about a third over medium/low heat. Depending on how much you reduced your sauce and what consistency it was to begin with your cornstarch amount will vary.
Slowly add slurry (corn starch mix) to your simmering BBQ sauce. It should thicken very quickly. You are looking for the consistency of pudding.
Remove from heat and cool.
Store in a squeeze bottle

If you can find tapiocca starch or even arrowroot starch both produce a sauce that has more shine, which looks great on the finished product.

Serve this bite skewered on a fork with the slaw behind and a squeeze of the sauce on top of the pork. Alternately you can use a chinese soup spoon with the slaw on the bottom, topped with the pork and finished with a squeeze of sauce.

Pics to come...