Pork Belly Buns
Thursday, August 5, 2010 at 3:53PM ;)
Quite a while ago I got the Momokuku cookbook and read it cover to cover – something that I’ve never done with a cookbook before. Of course I had to make these delicious looking buns straight afterwards... They turned out sooo delicious, but I’ve not really bothered to make them again because you do end up with a LOT of meat, and I feel like it’s a bit too rich to eat continuously over a few days.
Anyway, over the last few months my mum visited me and made something quite similar, which she called Chinese hamburgers :) Mr. Z (being a keen lover of pork belly) was so impressed he wanted to make some himself.
So he used the Momofuku recipe and made these amazing buns last night. Well to be precise he cooked the pork belly to perfection, and we bought the buns from the Asian store in the city. The pork belly was well complemented by the pickled cucumber, hoisin sauce, and spring onions.
Now that I’ve got your mouth watering, I’m sorry to say that I don’t have time to post the recipe today; but I will endeavour to update this post over the next few days – I just thought the pork belly goodness needs to be shared asap in all its glory!
If there is any pork belly left by the weekend I may consider making some ramen… yum…
Foodie Dreams
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As promised, here’s the recipe for the delectable pork belly. Please note that the recipe requires time to marinate, cook and chill the meat. So you generally need to start at least a day before you want to eat it; and if you want to have the pretty slices then the pork belly needs to be done at least 3 hours before you eat.
Ingredients (makes about 12 buns’ worth of pork)
Roughly 1.3 – 1.5 kg piece of skinless pork belly*
¼ Cup salt
¼ Cup sugar
Hoisin Sauce
½ Cup spring onion, thinly sliced
Pickled cucumber
* If you can’t find skinless pork belly, you can cut the skin off yourself. You can leave the skin on as crackling, but the cooking method would be a little different. The following assumes that you have removed the skin.
Method
- Mix the salt and sugar together. Place the pork belly into a roasting pan and rub the salt/sugar mixture all over the meat. Cover with cling-wrap and put it in the fridge for 6 – 24 hours.
- When the meat is marinated, discard any liquid that has accumulated. Heat the oven to 230°C and put the pork belly in (fat side up). Cook for about an hour, basting the meat in its own rendered fat during the process.
- Turn the oven down to 120°C and cook for another hour and a half; continue to baste every half an hour or so.
- When the meat is done take it out and let it cool slightly. Then cover it with cling-wrap or foil and put it in the fridge to chill – this ensures that you’ll get nice, even looking slices. If you don’t really care about that, then you can cut it straight away! (I don’t care, but Mr. Z does)
- When you’re ready to eat, take the pork out of the fridge and slice it up. If you’re eating bits at a time just re-heat in a pan; if it looks like you might be able to polish off the whole lot in one go, then you can re-heat it in the oven on about 150°C for 10 – 20 mins.
- Spread a generous amount of hoisin sauce on the inside of the bun, top with a few slices of the cucumber, pork belly and spring onion. Eat with chili sauce if you'd like.
Reader Comments (2)
What should I do if I want to leave the skin on?
Well, first you have to score the skin (i.e. make a few cuts on the skin) when marinating. Then when you put it in the oven you'll need to do it skin side up and covered the meat with aluminum foil for the first two hours or so of cooking on a slightly lower heat - say 150C or so. Then take the foil off and turn the oven up to about 230C to cook for about 20 - 30 mins so the skin can start to crisp up.
Once the meat is cooked you can follow step onwards :) Hope that helps!