2010 Cooking Club Week 26: Crisp Pork Belly Salad with Mint and Coriander

watna

This is a great summer recipe if you're having people over or want to bring something a bit different to a dinner/bbq. It's also nice in winter (which I am in the middle of ) as the roast pork gives it a bit of substance. It can take a bit of time as the pork belly needs to be roasted for 2 hours but this can be done the night before and it's worth it for the crackling!

Ingredients:

1KG piece boneless pork belly with skin - scored at 1cm intervals all over (in a diamond shape)
2 tbs fish sauce
2 tbs lime juice
2 tsp caster sugar
3 spring onions
1 small cucumber (the recipe says you can use lebanese cucumbers but they're a pain in the ass to find to I just use normal ones) thinly sliced
1 long red chilli, seeds removed and chopped
1/4 cup mint leaves
1/4 cup coriander leaves (I hate coriander so I just leave these out or sometimes substitute another leaf e.g. spinach or bok choi)
1/4 cup Thai Basil leaves (I just use normal basil)
2 tbs chopped salted peanuts


Method:
1. Preheat the Oven to 200C
2. Score the pork with a sharp knife in a diamond pattern and wipe the skin dry with a paper towel. Rub with 1 tsp sea salt.
3. Place skin-side up on a rack in a deep roasting tin (the tin I use to roast chickens works for me)
4. Pour in enough boiling water so that it comes to just below the rack.
5. Roast for 2 hours, topping up the water if necessary until the skin is crisp and the pork is tender.
6. Allow the pork to cook and cut in to bite-size pieces (try not to pick all the crackling off and eat it yourself!)
7. Combine the fish sauce, lime juice and sugar in a large bowl
8. Whisk to dissolve the sugar
9. Add the pork, spring onion, cucumber chilli and herbs to the bowl and toss to combine
11. Divide the salad in to 4 servings on to plates and scatter the peanuts on top (I love peanuts so I actually add them in to the main salad bowl and add lots extra!)

Faith

Oh my god, that sounds amazing! Can't wait to try this!

watna also very kindly stepped in at the last minute because the scheduled poster for this week hasn't logged on in ages or gotten my multiple reminders. Thanks watna!

The Sweeper

Just read this. It's 9.45am. I'm feckin starvin.

/dribbles on keyboard.

foodaholic

:pac:........mmmm crackling

Nevyn

Readign that has me drooling, I am certainly going to have to try that, esp with the weather being so fecking warm.

Mr Magnolia

I haven't cooked pork belly in a while and was looking for a recipe, I'm set.

watna

foodaholic wrote: »

:pac:........mmmm crackling

I know.

Wars have erupted in our house over crackling. It brings out the greed in all of us!

foodaholic

My butcher gives me extra skin so i make a side of Crackling with my crackling

TechnoPool

MOUTH IS WATERING ALREADY WITH THE FAT THOUGHTS:D

Little Alex

watna, that was a great recipe!

The meat was a good price at €6.25/kg, so €7.85 for the piece I got. Mine had ribs included in the deal so I got not only the belly but six huge ribs that I'll make tomorrow (with Frank's RedHot, no doubt!).

Here it is when it came out of the oven. CCTV captures a crackling thief, later identified as Mrs. Alex:



Would you believe that I had never had crackling before, but Mrs. Alex was raving about it... is it the same as pork scratchings? So yeah, I see now what the fuss is about!

Here is the made-up salad:



The dressing was delish... anything with lime and chilli is the business for me. So, thank you very much!