Boneless Pork Belly Chinese Style Anyone?

[This is not your pork!]

I just came back from a trip to China, and had some fantastic pork belly in Shanghai.

They mostly serve pork belly boneless cut up into small cubes with a coloring like soy sauce, quite fatty with the fat super tasty melting in your mouth like jelly, not hot at all.

Does anyone here have any suggestion for such a Chinese Style cook?

Boneless pork belly will be on offer this week, so I am gonna buy such a nice piece of about 8.82 lbs. The plan is to leave it untrimmed, rub it only with sea salt and a little black pepper, make it H&F, foil it in apple juice or apple cider at IT 165°F till 195°F, then cut in half and sauce one part with soy sauce, the other part with Hoisin sauce and let it on for another half hour or so.

The variation of that idea would be to pull and unwrap at 195°F, let rest for half hour, cut in cubes, apply sauces and put back on for another half hour or so (pretty much like burnt ends).

Boneless pork belly is a pretty flat piece of quite fatty meat, so does it even have to rest at all? I mean, it's closer to ribs than a normal piece of meat, making me unsure if resting is required or not.

Any ideas about soy or Hoisin based sauces?
Anything else fitting to a simple salt and slight pepper rub?

[woodpelletsmoker]

I am chinese in Beijing.China
It is called "Dong Po Pork" after name of great poet Su Dong Po 1036－1101.
It is boiled other than smoked.
Pork belley, suger, oil,soy sauce, chinese onion, ginger, rice liquor.
The red/brown color is from sugar fried by oil.

[ButtBurner]

I buy pork belly for making bacon at an Asian market by me

I always wondered what they used it for

[Phubar]

I just smoked it and pulled it when it was probe tender.
I smoke them for a minimal of 5 hours...glaze it a couple of times to make it shiny.
I see no need for Phoil.

http://www.bbqforum.nl/forum/showthr...oast-Porkbelly

[HeSmellsLikeSmoke]

I love it. Brother from Austria asks a question and gets responses from Brothers in China, Michigan and The Netherlands.

[Teltum]

Last I had Asian style pork belly it was referred to a (fresh or flesh Asian accent so it is hard for me to tell) side pork. It was small cuts (thick cut then cut to strips) of pork belly that were not smoked or cured and then they were fried on a table grill (propane camp stove) and severed on lettuce and rice with the pork had a mild kind of spicy marinade that would light you up after 6 or 7 bites.

Make me have the itch to go have dinner with the mother in law who is from S. Korea.

[CharredApron]

First time I made it the recipe called for boiling then baking was good, but the last one I made, I rolled and smoked it it was a fatty belly!

[SmokinJohn]

Marinated mine in Maple Bourbon sauce, and smoked until IT of 160. Wrapped it, and oh baby....

[smokemaster1]

Do a site search for Char Siu or check out Landarc's post http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/sh...ad.php?t=73435.
Great for pork belly, I've done it several times! Forget the foil & I always rest my meat.

[Phubar]

Originally Posted by HeSmellsLikeSmoke

I love it. Brother from Austria asks a question and gets responses from Brothers in China, Michigan and The Netherlands.

...and Germany now too!

[This is not your pork!]

Well, looks like the marinade to go for:

Grandpa Kwock's Char Siu
2 tbs Hoisin Sauce
2 tbs Dark Soy Sauce
1.5 tbs Rice Wine
2.5 tbs white sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp catsup
1.5 tbs minced garlic
1/4 cup honey

How about the glazing (I prefer not to use store bought sauces)?

I am confused now about the cooking process. Smoke till tender / IT 150-160°F and pull for resting?

Is going up to IT 195°F too much for pork belly?

Phubar, which grate temp did you have when doing it for at least 5 hours?

As my wife can confirm, I was unable to produce any edible result without foiling beef or pork so far (my last cook went utterly wrong; full report with pr0n to follow), and I have absolutely no idea what I do wrong. All recent results with foiling were pretty much perfect, but I still have not the proper feeling for temp control and probing for tenderness.

[Phubar]

Originally Posted by This is not your pork!

Well, looks like the marinade to go for:How about the glazing (I prefer not to use store bought sauces)?

I am confused now about the cooking process. Smoke till tender / IT 150-160°F and pull for resting?

Is going up to IT 195°F too much for pork belly?

Phubar, which grate temp did you have when doing it for at least 5 hours?

As my wife can confirm, I was unable to produce any edible result without foiling beef or pork so far (my last cook went utterly wrong; full report with pr0n to follow), and I have absolutely no idea what I do wrong. All recent results with foiling were pretty much perfect, but I still have not the proper feeling for temp control and probing for tenderness.

I'd save up the lePhtover marinade,bring it to a boil,season if needed and reduce it to a glaze.

I don't do much temping but I've looked on the Dutch forum and they're talking about 167F/75C IT.

Porkbelly is more Phorgiving than porkneck/shoulder because it's very Phatty...I can imagine you'd Phoil the brisket or porkneck but I absolutely don't see the need for Phoil with porkbelly.
You can probably overcook it a couple of hours and it still will be juicy.

Grate temp should be low 'n slow...about 225F or so.

Now.....learn "Phingerspitzengefühl" for that probe tenderness Pheel!

[Wampus]

Originally Posted by HeSmellsLikeSmoke

I love it. Brother from Austria asks a question and gets responses from Brothers in China, Michigan and The Netherlands.

Yep......


THIS PLACE ROCKS!!!!

[landarc]

The Chinese are masters of cooking pork. Flat out, they do more with the whole animal than any other group of folks. Now to the original question.

Dong Po Pork is not really boiled, it is braised. Otherwise, exactly as Woodpellet Smoker said, the flavor profile is typical of most Hakkasan cooking. That is to say it is salty/sweet/sour/fatty. I have made it and it is a special dish. It takes a good three hours in a slow braise, and what you need to do is render the connective tissue and the fat, once that is done, it can be served hot or at room temperature and will have a melting texture.

I make char siu with belly, and that is more of a traditional coastal Cantonese preparation, where the meat is marinated then roasted. I prefer to roast it slowly in a smoker, to get a nice slow render. It also takes 3 hours, as 225F to 250F, it will burn however, due to the sugars in my char siu marinade. But, it gives great flavor and once rendered, it again, can be served at room temperature or hot.

My favorite way to prepare belly is similar to Siu Yuk, where the belly is marinated on the flesh and fat side, with the top left unmarinated. Then roasted at 275F for 2 hours, and seared off on the skin side to get crispy. For this, I prefer a marinade of Hoisin sauce, dark soy, pulverized garlic, ginger and scallion. The top is punctured with hundreds of needle punctures and treated with vinegar, then rubbed vigorously with salt. This gives you a nice crisp surface. Let me go look for a recipe.

[landarc]

forgive the re-post and length, but, here is what I like to do most with pork belly...

While perusing the Japanese food market for ingredients for my Osechi Ryori meals, I checked out the meat area, looking for high quality pork, and I was not disappointed. I found some nice chunks of Duroc Hog pork belly, perfectly sized for doing something with. I love hitting the Japanese market for pork, as the quality and variety of pork is almost always of a very high quality. This pork had glistening white fat, a nice deep pink flesh and when unwrapped, a nice clean smell.

Mmmm, Poooorrrkkkk

It made sense to do something with the smoker, then again, I really like Siew Yuk, the crispy skin pork belly becoming so popular these days. What I decided to do was go for something inbetween. I prepared a marinade of various Asian-ish ingredients and let the pork belly marinade in it. I did not score the meat, as I would have for siew yuk, I will probably go ahead and score it next time. I marinaded overnight and in the morning, removed it, scored the fat and let it air dry on a rack.

30 minutes into drying

I heavily docked the fat with a small sharp skewer. Then wiped the fat clean to make sure there was no moisture and sprinkled equal amount of kosher salt and medium grained turbinado sugar onto the fat side. This was a light covering. I also prayed a little cider vinegar onto the fat. This all sat for 2 hours under a fan. I wanted to dry the surface as much as possible. I was already running the UDS at smoking temperature, somewhere around 235F or so,which would never do, so I fired up the kettle and got a nice small hot fire going. I took the belly pieces and put them fat side down over the hot fire for a couple of minutes, just to start the caramelization of the fat. It took very little time for each piece to become golden colored, I then put them into the UDS. It smoked for 3 hours over hickory. I pulled when the fat seemed to be fairly rendered.

Off the smoker

I believe it would have turned out better if I had scored the flesh, although, after the 3 hours in the smoker, the fat was almost confit like and the meat was very tender. The top of the fat got nice and crispy and it had the flavor of a light hickory smoke. The close up...

Note texture and crisp top

I hope this photo shows that the fat has rendered and the fat cap has fully caramelized, with the darker parts offering a slightly bitter counterpoint to the earthy hickory smoke and sweet pork. I served two of the pork belly chunks by simply chopping them up and dusting them with a coarse textured turbinado sugar (what? you don't keep multiple sized grains of 3 or 4 types of sugar in your house?) and putting them out on a plate. This would have been really good with some plum sauce.

I also braised some pork belly, I need to see if I have any info on what I did with that.

Asian-ish marinade

1/8 cup shoyu
2 tablespoons Hoisin sauce
2 tablespoons or so of white port, sherry or whiskey (I used white port)
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil (untoasted, expeller pressed)
1 large pinch Phu Quoc black pepper, fine grind (fresh ground)
1 star anise piece (whole, use a good large one)
1/4 teaspoon each cinnamon, clove, allspice, nutmeg (untoasted, fresh ground if possible)

Blend all ingredients in marinading vessel (plastic bag for me) and add meat. Shake and turn bag at least 2 times during a marinde time of 4 to 6 hours. Opp, found it, I added the pork belly, along with some bamboo shoot, shiitake mushrooms, chicken stock, bonito stock and some green onions to a brasier and let it braise in the oven for 2 hgours. This is an umami and fat bomb of a dish. I find all of this post to be too much for me nowadays, but, it seems many can still eat more than a couple of chunks or a spoonful. Here is that braised dish.