Crispy Slow-Roasted Pork Belly

Pork belly is a fatty piece of meat that is often used to make bacon and pancetta. However, it can also be roasted, resulting in flavorful and tender pork covered with delicious crackling. It's that dual texture (often in a single bite) that makes it irresistible and guaranteed to please everyone at the dinner table.
This roasted pork belly recipe is simple, using nothing more than basic seasonings and extra-virgin olive oil. The long, slow roasting makes for tender meat, and the increased oven temperature near the end of the cooking time helps create a crispy skin.

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Ingredients:

• 2 pounds pork belly with skin
• 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• ​1 to 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Instructions:
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1. Heat the oven to 350 F/180 C. Place a rack (such as a cooling rack) on a rimmed baking sheet. With a sharp knife, make several parallel cuts across the skin of the pork belly, 1/4 to 1/2-inch apart. Cut through the skin and fat but not into the meat.
2. Sprinkle the pork all over with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper. Drizzle with olive oil and rub it all into the pork.
3. Place the pork on the rack, skin-side up.
4. Roast for 2 to 2 1/2 hours or until the meat is very tender and falling apart. Increase the heat to 425 F and roast for 20 to 25 minutes longer to crisp the skin even more.
5. Remove the pork from the oven and let rest for 10 minutes before slicing. Slice thinly, using the cuts in the skin as guides.

Helpful Tips:

• Allow the pork belly to rest in the fridge, uncovered, for about 4 hours before you plan to cook it, after you rub it with oil and season it with salt and pepper. The skin will dry out and result in a crispier crackling.
• Make sure the pork is cold when you score it so it's easier to cut.
• Placing the belly skin-side up is essential to tender meat because the fat renders while it cooks.
• Adjust the cooking time for pork belly that weighs significantly more or less than 2 pounds or if your oven tends to run hot. The USDA's food safety guidelines state that the minimum safe internal temperature for whole pork cuts is 145 F.
• You can strain the rendered pork fat in the baking sheet through a fine mesh strainer and save it for future use. Keep it in the refrigerator or freezer and use it the same way you would use bacon fat: toss with potatoes to roast in the oven, baste turkey or chicken, add to hot vinaigrettes, or use for general frying and sauteing.

​View original post at The Spruce Eats

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