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Monday 21 February 2011

getting all steamed up about my belly

Well, I say my belly. I didn't quite mean the area of my body that once was a six pack and now is more beer barrel. I meant a piece of belly pork that I marinated and steam cooked in the oven last night. My mate Paul the fishmonger and former chef who works with me at Tesco made me a chinese marinade. He did verbally give me recipe and cooking method but I couldn't remember it all when I came to cook the pork so, with a bit of help from t'internet, I made the cooking up.



First I part sliced the belly pork through to create lots of little squares of pork but the slab of meat still remaining as a whole piece. Then I rubbed in the delicious smelling marinade, covered it in silver foil and left it in the fridge for a day.



To cook the belly I turned the oven up full (gas mark nine). With the belly on a wire rack and suspended over a water filled tray I popped it into the hot oven for an initial fifteen minutes and then turned the heat down to gas mark four. It remained cooking for an hour and a half and a couple of times along the way I basted the belly with the water in the tray. At one point I rather stupidly moved the hot wire rack along the work surface with my bare fingers! Ouch! I called myself a few choice names and took my stinging finger tips to the cold water tap.




I could hardly wait to eat the chinese style belly pork and finally at 9pm I wolfed down the little cubes of gorgeousness with some plain cooked rice and a few greens. Yummy!


PS: I still have half of the belly sitting in the fridge but it I don't really fancy it cold.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

oh lordy I love Pork Belly... I love what you've done with it, very inventive.

Peter said...

Hi Phil

That looks really ggod my friend. It is some coincidence that I watched Ken Hom do exactly the same thing on the television food channel. I think he cooked his a little longer but apart from that the process was exactly the same. He served his with plain boiled rice, but omitted the mange tout.

Very nice and well done. Last night I cooked a hybrid of thai king prawn curry and soup! Lots of butternut squash and sweet potato. It was fiery hot - just how I like it.

John Medd said...

What, pray tell, is in the marinade Phil?

Peter said...

You could freeze the leftovers and use it in a stir fry at some point in the future.

Karenjane said...

This looks delicious. I love belly pork, lovely & cheap & perfect for long slow cooking.