Chinese, crispy, aromatic, pork belly pancakes

Having somehow failed to win last year’s pancake competition Cowie and I had a long hard look at ourselves. We realised we’d let ourselves down and our families down. So we went away and put our thinking caps on. The thinking caps worked brilliantly. Inspired by watching Heston’s programme about how to make the perfect crispy aromatic duck and our love of pork belly we decided to try something new. Something original. Something no one has ever done before!

Chinese, crispy aromatic pork belly… mmmmm….

So we went to visit Chadwick’s in Balham where we were sold a glorious piece of pork belly. Dry to the touch and butchered like a work of art. As soon as I removed it from it’s wax paper jacket I knew we were in for a treat.

The first step was to salt the skin and wrap the whole joint in kitchen towel before popping in the fridge for a few hours to ensure the skin was primed for top class crackling. Cowie arrived back from the gym with a plethora of spices. We dusted the belly with half a jar of five spice and a sprinkle of salt before roasting the joint on a wire rack at a decent heat. The intense heat browned the outside and filled the house wafts of the east.

After forty minutes we removed the pork belly and bowed down before its golden glory!

Looking good. It was now time for phase 2. Remove the pork and rack. Place to one side. Pour a couple of tins of peaches and two more of lyches into the roasting pan. Make sure they have been preserved in syrup as you need the sugar for the sauce later. Then pour in plenty of soy sauce. My bottle had a jammed lid so I was only able to trickle it in, which makes it hard to suggest how much is needed! Then throw in 2 star anise and a stick of cinnamon. Depending on how much heat you like, add some chili. You need it for some background warmth and depth. Sprinkle on more five spice and give it all a stir. Place the pork belly on top of the fruity mixture. You’ll also need to add some rice wine vinegar to add some sharpness to offset the sweetness. It will look a bit like this…

Tun the oven down to around 150 and place the pan at the base of the oven. There’s no need to cover it. Then you need to find something to occupy yourself with for 5 or 6 hours whilst the house fills with incredible smells. We played squash. I smashed my racket.

When you remove the belly from the oven it should look a bit like this.

The next thing to do is peel the semi crackled crackling from the top of the belly. Pop it on a wire rack add some salt and turn on the grill. After five or ten minutes have a look and you should be the proud owner of some light, crispy crackling.

This is the ideal time to finish the sauce off. Add half a jar of hoisin sauce to the juice and mix around. It should thicken and take on the glossy feel you get in Chinese restaurants.

Next, remove the pork belly and the fruit and pour off the sauce. Allow it all to cool completely before storing in the fridge.

I marched into work with a thermos flask of my special sauce, a tupperware filled with glorious pork belly and a zipper bag full of crackling. With a stroke of amazing fortune I found myself in Chinatown at lunchtime which allowed me to pick up a pack of Chinese pancakes.

We arrived at the pancake party fully loaded. Cowie started chopping some spring onions and cucumber whilst I made straight for the oven where I reheated the pork belly before shredding it into shards of juicy flesh.

We served the hoisin sauce in Chinese dishes and placed the crunched up crackling on a separate plate and let everyone tuck in as if it was a shared starter in a Chinese restaurant. Without wanting to blow our own trumpet, this is probably one of the best things we have ever cooked. It was salty, crunchy, sweet, juicy, deep and more importantly gorgeous. Take a look for yourself…

Our hard work paid off. Our pancake was voted best savoury pancake of the night. So now the pressure is on as defending champions to raise our game and take the pancake innovation up a level. Watch this space.

For other pork belly recipes have a look at:

Brixton Pork Belly
Chinese Pork Belly

Pork Belly a la Brixton

Feeling cold and in need of some winter warmth I bought a slab of pork belly from a stall at Brixton Market that sells outdoor reared British pork. 5 ribs worth of pork for under £5 is great value. To balance out the weight of the pig in my left hand I bought a pineapple, mango and some plantain… there’s nothing worse than walking up Brixton Hill being weighed down unevenly.

I prepared the pork belly by salting and scoring the skin and then whacking it in a hot oven to blast it for half and hour. Meanwhile, I got the pineapple, mango and plaintain ready and then lobbed them in with the pork and turned the temperature down and cooked the pork for a further 6 hours at 150’c. Some star anise, shit loads of ginger and chilli may have found its way in there as well.

Check on it regularly and pour off excess fat…

It should get a hard, crispy top and the surrounding goodies should become soft and squidgy.

Unfortunately, I am a bit of an idiot when it comes to the subject of plantain. The plantains I had chosen were green and rock solid. I imagined that over the course of 6 hours of cooking they would become soft and add the carby backbone to this dish. Luckily, I tried one before serving only to find that it was harder than a bullet and tasted gross and a bit weird. I have had plantain many times before whilst living in Africa so have a vague knowledge of the stuff… but this was horrible! So I hoyked out all of the plantain and boiled some noodles.

Disaster averted, I separated the juice from the goodies and added some mirin, rice vinegar and soy whilst reducing to a sticky sauce and then served in a deep bowl with some spinach to stop everything looking so brown! Grate ginger on top like you would do with parmersan and spinkle fresh chilli slices on for some much need colour.

Whislt it started out as being inspired by the West Indies, owing to the plantain disaster it landed up being fairly oriental. But the great thing is that the combination of ginger, pineapple, mango, chilli and pork belly is delicious. With some refinement this could become quite special. Pork really lends itself to being eaten with fruit – think apple sauce or gooseberry and elderflower gravy so this is a natural, if slightly tropical progression.

For other pork belly recipes have a look here.

Chinese Slow Roasted Pork

Take a large and inexpensive lump of pre-scored pork belly from Brixton market. Cover it in salt and five spice. Wedge pieces of star anise and cinnamon bark into the seams of fat. Trim off nipples. Then roast in a seriously hot oven until the skin has started to become slightly crispy.

Turn down the heat to around 170’c and manoeuvre loads of ginger, a couple of chillies cleaved in half and a few cloves of garlic so that they raise the meat up from the base of roasting tin. This lets some of the fat render out. Roast gently for an hour.

Pour off the oozing fat and replace with an unhealthy glug of soy and some sake. Add more ginger, star anise and cinnamon. Return to oven and slow roast for 3 hours, topping up liquid when needed with rehydrated mushrooms and resultant stock.

Remove meat and place on a wire rack on a baking tray. Add more salt to the skin. Place under grill and give it a final whack of heat to crisp the skin up so it blisters.

Pour off the dark, juice into a sauce pan and add mirin, sake and rice vinegar. Reduce violently until it is sticky.

Meanwhile boil some rice noodles and steam some lettuce. Remove, pork from oven and hack in half. Combine all elements and serve to your ravenous housemate. Simple, cheap and seriously tasty.