A few days ago I tweeted "If there is a god, he's eating pork belly right now" and I was completely serious. And that goes for any god. How else did Buddha grow such girth? Even if their religion prohibits the consumption of all porcine products, the gods are sneaking pork belly behind their backs. I'm convinced that if wine is the elixir of the gods, pork belly must be the food. It's really just that good. I would live off of it, if obesity wasn't linked to heart disease and diabetes among others.
Anyway, enough of my ranting. Maybe you remember my bacon post from a while back. In that post I made half of hunk a pork belly into bacon and used the other half for pancetta.
Since I had more than enough belly at the time, I froze the pancetta for later use. Just this past week I defrosted it, and cooked it sous vide at 180 degrees for 12 hours. It came out AMAZING. Seriously, this is probably the greatest thing I have ever created. Not only is it moutherwateringly tender and fatty, it's extremely flavorful and salty from the salt and herbs and spices that I used a while back to turn it into pancetta. The best part of the belly is definitely the fat which carries the flavor of the cure so well. The belly is great cold, but even better when crisped up. The fat renders very nicely and it becomes crispy nice and quick. In fact, I think I'll crisp up some of the fat and put it in a salad right now...
4 comments:
Surely a good dose of pig fat should be available by doctors prescription? Making the world a better place every day.
I've had tasty success with curing beef brisket for about two weeks with 50/50 kosher salt and brown sugar and then smoking with apple or hickory chips for round about half a day. I'm not even hungry and that's making my mouth water! Can't remember when I found your blog, it was sometime earlier this year. It has been both enjoyable and informative.
hey, something interesting... the buddah was fat due to overindulgence but then he lost all the weight on his road to enlightment...
i thought that was kinda cool.
the fat smiling guy? as per wiki...
Many Westerners associate the name "Buddha" with figurine depictions of a certain fat, bald, smiling person. This is inaccurate, as the person in these figurines is not Buddha at all, but Budai, a Chinese Buddhist monk who lived in the 10th century CE
and all that to say - YOU ARE SO RIGHT. PORK BELLY RULES...(sigh)
I love a bit of pork belly roasted. The fats the best bit so sometimes I just eat the crackling.
YOur blog is really cool. You really are well into food. Really good and refreshing to read.
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