Chinese-style roast pork belly, or Siu Yuk, as it is more fondly known, has been a Southern Chinese delicacy for ages. Unlike the Western style cooking methods that require scoring of the skin, the Chinese crispy roast pork belly traditionally requires the pork skin to be pricked until it’s completely punctured with holes. This is an important step, ensuring a uniform crisp and a beautiful crust.
Absolutely mouthwatering, this is a perfect and fail-proof recipe — guaranteeing you crispy, crunchy, flavourful pork crackling, and melt-in-your-mouth pork belly.
What you’ll need
- 900g/2 lbs pork belly
- 6 cloves garlic
- 1 teaspoon coriander powder
- 1 teaspoon ginger powder
- 1 teaspoon white pepper powder
- 1 teaspoon four-spice powder
- Coarse salt, for salt crust
How to make it
- Preheat the oven to 350 deg F/180 deg C, fill a tray on the bottommost rack of your oven with water. The pork belly should be roasted on the lower-middle rack.
- Dry the pork belly thoroughly.
- Using a prickling tool, spike or knife, poke as many holes on the skin of the pork belly as possible.
- Make some horizontal slits on the sides of the belly, then rub the meat side with the five spice powder, coriander powder, ginger powder and five-spice powder. Do not season the skin, just the meat will do.
- Insert each garlic and push them deep inside the pork belly. Do make sure they go deep enough so they don’t drop out during the baking process.
- Layer the top of the pork belly with the salt evenly.
- Place the pork belly on a wire rack or directly on the lower middle rack, and roast for 1 hour. While baking, the oil will drip to the pan at the bottom that has already been filled with with water.
- Bake until the salt crust forms. Check water in the pan periodically and add more if needed.
- After an hour or when the salt crust has formed, remove the pork belly from the oven, pull off the salt crust and discard.
- Raise the heat of oven to 465 deg F/240 deg C.
- Place the pork belly back in the oven and roast for another 40 minutes. (monitor closely – if it’s not crispy enough, roast for 5-10 minutes more, or if it browns too quickly, remove from oven earlier)
- Remove from oven and let set for 10 minutes.
- Serve with mustard (traditional dip) and to elevate the roast further, include flavoured salts and dips such as yuzukosho. Enjoy!
Notes:
- Using coarse salt is important to prevent too much salt from permeating into the pork skin.