I used to eat this all the time when I lived in Guangdong Province, China. I still make it occasionally when I get enough time to do so, and it turns out really well.
Ingredients:- Large slab of pork belly, with skin.
- Lemon Juice
- Chinese Five Spice Powder
- Kosher Salt
Preparation:Wash and pat dry the pork belly.
Take a knife or a spiked meat tenderizer and poke little holes all over the skin side of the pork belly. Be careful not to pierce all the way through the fat and meat below. This is just to prepare the skin and make it less tough and more crispy.
Flip the pork belly over.
Lay the pork belly skin side down, and using a sharp knife, cut across the pork belly, about ¾ of the way through, being careful not to cut all the way through to the skin. Make these cuts in parallel lines across the pork belly every inch or so.
Take the Chinese Five Spice powder and rub it all over the meat side (NOT the skin side!), being sure to rub it into the cuts you just made.
Place the pork belly in a foil lined pan, skin side up. Wrap the foil tightly around the edges of the meat, leaving only the skin side exposed.
Rub some lemon juice into the skin, leaving it wet. Next, take the kosher salt and rub it into the skin. The lemon juice and the salt will make a good thick paste. You want to use enough salt to cover up the skin really well.
Leave the pork belly in the refrigerator overnight.
When you get up in the morning, heat your oven to 400 degrees F. Let the meat come to room temperature, or at least get a little warmer, and place the pork belly in the oven for an hour or an hour and a half, depending on how big a piece of meat you’re working with. It’s pork, and it’s wrapped / coated with salt crust on top, so it won’t dry out.
After that time is up, take the pork belly out and put the broiler on HI.
While that’s heating up, take a knife and scrape off the salt crust and remove as much of the salt as you can. Put back in the oven to broil, still skin side up, and watch it carefully. The skin will start to bubble and get crispy. You need to watch it so you don’t burn it.
Once it’s good and bubbly, take it out and let it sit for a while to rest and cool off. From there, you can slice along the cuts you made when preparing the meat, and then slice across those strips to give you nice chunks of meat. Be sure to cut each piece to get a good mixture of meat, fat, and skin on each piece.
Serve on a bed of sliced cucumber, with any sort of sauce you may like. (I just use hoisin sauce with some honey, minced garlic, and sriracha. Just heat it up on the stove a bit, let it bubble and then pour it into a dipping bowl.)
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