Pressed Belly of Pork

I'll admit it, I've been on a pork kick lately. This is another dish inspired by Chef Ramsay, and more specifically, his show, "The F Word." You can catch most episodes of the show on Hulu provided you can deal with the ads, and all the other annoying things that come along with the site. On a lazy day when bored, it's worth a watch. If you're just looking to copy Ramsay's recipes like me, you can also find clips of many of them on youtube.

Start off with some pork belly. This is a pretty cheap cut of meat, but it's more difficult to cook than your average pork. The first time I encountered this meat, (that I remember) it was cooked Chinese style. It was served in a clay pot with rice. It was extremely rich and savory, but aside from those qualities, it is much different from this preparation. Pork belly can sometimes be difficult to find, depending on where you shop. I found this one at a local Asian market, but when I've prepared this dish in the past, I had to go to a meat market in order to find it. Sadly, both times it was only available frozen. A shame, but we do as we must.

Look at the layers of fat on that bad boy! Also note the skin on the top side. This will later become crispy crackling. The other ingredients you'll need include white wine, garlic, and fresh thyme.  I've found as I've been cooking more and more, it's worth the extra time money and effort to work with fresh herbs. If I was making a plate of pizza rolls, sure, I can sprinkle on some dried basil from a shaker. However, after tasting some fresh basil that my brother grew himself, I knew what I had been missing for a long time. Fresh herbs are the way to go. Even if you don't grow them yourself, many stores and markets carry them. Spend the extra cash on them; it makes a world of difference.

 

The thyme you can leave as is. For the garlic, chop the whole bulbs in half.

Once you've done this, arrange the garlic and thyme onto a baking tray such that you can rest your pork belly on it for cooking. This will elevate the pork off the bottom of the pan.

Now take a sharp knife and score the fat on the pork belly. Maybe don't go as deep as I did here, but the idea is to prevent the under layers of fat from remaining chewy after cooking. Scoring the fat will make it easier to obtain the coveted crispy crackling.  There is much debate on the best way to achieve this, but I think I scored way too deeply on this attempt. This is my third time making this dish and I still haven't perfected it yet, but this was my best attempt so far. If anything, I got it too crispy this time. Either way, do some research and try the method you feel most comfortable with. I will update this blog the next time I try this and hopefully have perfect crackling to show off.

Season (both sides) of the meat with salt and pepper. Gordon uses olive oil here. I did not follow suit for this attempt. On my first two takes on this dish, my skin did not get crisp enough, and I thought that not using the oil would help. It did, but too much. I would use some EVOO but sparingly for my next attempt. If any readers know better, please comment below.

 

Now carefully place your prepped and seasoned pork belly on top of your bed of garlic and thyme. Arrange the garlic as needed to keep the pork from touching the tray.

 Pour your some white wine into the dish, but not on top of your pork. This will help prevent it from drying out. At this point Chef Ramsay wrapped the pork in foil (as I mimicked on my first two attempts) to keep the meat moist. I found that this does indeed keep it moist, but to a higher degree than I wanted. My skin was not crispy when I wrapped it in foil, so this time I used less wine and left it uncovered. In a future attempt, I will experiment further to achieve ideal results.

Into a hot oven for 45 minutes. 

Here is how it looks after it has been cooked. For all my nitpicking, it was already absolutely delicious at this point and I could have eaten the whole thing straight away. Exercising restraint, let's move onto the next step.

Now use another dish with some weight in it to flatten the pork. Finally! A use for the endless supply of canned goods my brother insists on maintaining!  This process will take about 6 hours. Pop it into the fridge and continue preparations. You'll have a lot of extra time, so this is a good opportunity to file your taxes, prepare for a marathon, alphabetize your sausages, (you're cool if you catch that reference) or just lay back and continue drinking. You have been drinking while cooking, right? It's important!

 

Before relaxing though, you'll need to quickly prepare the gravy.  In the pan you cooked the pork in, pour some more white wine over the garlic and thyme. This will loosen all the goodies.

A quick note on wine: I don't know shit about wine. I do know, however, what I like. And I like this Australian stuff. It's pretty cheap too. Transfer the contents of the baking tray into a sauce pan. Gorden does this right in the dish itself, but that wasn't working too well for me.

Add some chicken stock and reduce. You can take it off the heat and reheat when the pork is ready at this point.

Remove the pork from the fridge after the required 6 hours. It should be flat, chilled, and glorious.

Portion it out. Cut it into pieces a little smaller than a deck of cards. This is very rich stuff so it needn't be any bigger. That didn't stop me from eating two pieces, but you may not be as gluttonous as I am.  Speaking of which, try your best not to eat it right now. It's totally edible and actually quite tasty cold just how it is like this.

Going back to the gravy, after you've added white wine and chicken stock and reduced it down a little, give it a taste. You may need to season it a little as I did. (I used unsalted chicken stock.) Then strain the liquid. Press down on the garlic which is super soft and roasted, to get as much as possible into the sauce. It will be sweet, garlic flavored, and horrible for you. Just the way I like it. Photo credit goes to my brother Treffly for snapping the pics of me straining the gravy.

The final gravy is a sight to behold, and super aromatic.  Set it aside to pour over the meat.

The cut portions of pork can go back into a hot oven for 10 minutes to reheat. This is how they look when finished.

As I almost always do, I made some rice to go with it. Two pieces is excessive given how rich this is, but what the hell. You only live a couple times!

Pour the gravy over the rice and pork and serve.

Although extremely delicious, I think I can do better next time. While before my crackling was not crisp enough, this time it was too crispy. I have big plans next time I cook pork belly. However, I may try it Asian style and see if I can emulate the pork in the clay pot I experienced in China. Stay tuned!