Fat...

One of my favorite ways to eat pork... roast pork belly. I am making it so often now that I can time the cooking by eye-balling the weight of that slab of belly on my hands. But then again... I think I may be eating too much of it already...

Eating the belly by itself can be a little too rich, so I like to have it with some vegetables and I decided to make a vegetable stew with it.

Pork belly

My first entry on this blog was on pork belly, but there are actually about few ways to come about creating this dish. First of all, there are 2 criteria to have good roast pork belly. The most important criteria would be the crackling... the skin has to be crispy, that's the whole point of it. The second thing would be the fat or whatever fat that is left on the piece of the belly from the slow rendering in the oven.

There are probably many methods out there but there are two that I particularly like, and that is the traditional Chinese and western(English maybe). What I have made is a little combination of the two, where I take a very slow and low roast approach of the western version and then finished with high heat, the Chinese version of crisping the skin till it pops. A good piece of belly does not need much other than a good sprinkle of salt to season and to help draw moisture out of the skin for crisping and some oil to help the browning and crisping as well for the skin.

A vegetable stew is as simple as whatever you have in your fridge. A simple mirepoix of celery, carrots, and onion is a good start and I added a bit of diced potatoes and shitake mushrooms. A good sautee on the mirepoix and then the mushroom and potatoes and finish up with a simple stock, or even water and simmer till thickens. I adjust the seasoning at the end and I like to put a little sugar if I do put a little vinegar or red wine into the stew. I usually garnish with a little chiffonade of leafy veg on top if I can't get any microgreens