Pork Belly

[Ray!]

I've never had pork belly in my life, but today when we went shopping there was pork belly on special at about $8, so I bought a packet expecting to get some cracking and not much more. Boy, was I surprised. I made a spicy rub for the underside of the pork belly using garlic, chilli, ginger, black pepper, salt and agave syrup; and oil and obscene quantities of sea salt for the rind side and then baked the lot in our turbo cooker. OMG! I don't think I can ever buy a pork roast again, as I have never had a pork roast that comes even close to this.

Cheers

Ray

[admin]

Haha heart attack pending. Sounds yum

[Ray!]

Who cares! It tasted devine.

Cheers

Ray

[admin]

Haha yeah. I cooked lamb for one on my spit last night :-)

[BigGQWesty]

You have found heaven Ray.. Lol

But I'm totally with you.. Can't beat a good belly...

[Foo]

Have often wondered about pork belly, you may have convinced me to have a crack at it Ray!

Foo

[Glort]

I have heard of pork belly but never had it either.

From what I gather, it's very popular in some parts and a highly sought after cut.

Might get the mrs to get a couple and cook them in the woodfired pizza oven.

Did some ribs in that weekend before last. You could suck the meat off the bone with a drinking straw.

Nothing like cooking in the traditional ways instead of gas and electric stoves.

[dronus4x4]

Haha yeah. I cooked lamb for one on my spit last night :-)

So that's where my cat went!

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

[bigbluemav]

Who cares! It tasted devine.

Cheers

Ray

I had it for work dinner for my wife. Must admit I agree. Absolutely BEAUTIFUL!!

[Tonka]

Byron bay pub makes pork belly to drool for

[Ray!]

We had some pork belly again the other day, which we bought from Coles. I wouldn't recommend Coles pork belly at all, it was more like a roast pork; whereas, the one we got from Woolworths, was completely different and utterly delicious. Both were cooked exactly the same way, but the Coles one had none of the flavour of the Woolworths one, so we know where we'll be getting ours in future.

Cheers

Ray

[Glort]

Coles must Slaughter substandard Pigs.

[BigGQWesty]

IMHO, go to a real butchers and request cuts.. My inlaws just got a whole cow for $500... That's well over $1000 worth of meat from the supermarket, and it's all top quality.. You should see the ribs!!!!!

[Glort]

My Uncle takes his cows to the backyard Butchers and gets the whole thing cut up and bagged for the freezer for $50.

Upside of living in a country town.

[Russ81]

Cooked one up tonight after reading this thread, can't believe what I've been missing out on.

[Ray!]

One thing that I didn't mention is how I cook the prok belly. After I've rubbed the underside with the the spice mix and the rind with oil and salt, I put it rind side up in the turbo cooker at 220C for 20 mins and then drop the temp down to 180C for another 45-50 mins. That will give you the best crackling in the world and the juiciest pork underneath. We had our third Woolworths pork belly last week and it's definitiely better than what we got from Coles. We also bought an Aldi turbo cooker on Sat and used it to cook some crumbed chicken fillets stuffed with ham and Dijon mustard on Sun with the remnants of a big hangover (turned out great and slept well). But I'm worried about the heating element and how it will work with crackling.

The element turns on and the kitchen lights up (it uses one of those light based heating elements), but the heating element only turns on for a short time and then it's off again, and the bowl doesn't seem to get as hot as our old one. The Aldi unit appears to have a much gentler heating system than the old turbo cooker we have, but I won't really know until I try another pork belly. It's definitely not time to retire the old unit just yet.

Cheers

Ray