Pork belly is one of the greatest parts of one of the yummiest (if not the yummiest) animals on the planet. This cut of pork has the ability to be both luscious and crisp at the same time. And when you think about it that is a truly challenging thing to accomplish. The most common product made with pork belly is strip bacon, but it has many possibilities fresh. This dish is braised, but I've also deep fried it.
After reading many pork belly recipes over the last few days I decided that none of them sounded like exactly what I wanted. I was also unwilling to go to the store to buy any more ingredients to create many of the dishes I'd been reading about. With this being my situation, and having a pound of pork belly and a napa cabbage on hand, this is what I came up with for dinner. My fingers are crossed, but if the worst should happen there's a good pizza place nearby that delivers.
At this point take the dish that the belly was marinated in and loosen the marinade that's left in it with a quick splash of water, pour it over the belly and cabbage. For dramatic effect I placed a curl of garlic scape which was left lonesome on the counter in with the belly. Covered it with the lid and placed it in the oven.
So far so good.
The best part of pork belly is that it can have the satisfying crunch of bacon, but still be tender and juicy like a well cooked pork chop. I've achieved tender, now it's time to achieve the crunch.
The plan is to heat up my broiler and crisp the skin and fat, thereby achieving the much sought after tender/crunchy dynamic. While the broiler is heating I've made some rice, and also taken some of the cabbage that did not go into the pot with the belly and steamed it. Normally steamed cabbage doesn't really do much for me, but this is a lovely head of cabbage from the local farmers market and I think it will be really nice alongside my delicious, yet very rich pork belly.
I'm very pleased with how my experiment went, this is a recipe that will definitely be repeated.
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