Pork Belly Chinese Style

I love the travel and food videos from Mikey Chen or Strictly Dumpling. Now doing videos as Cooking with Mikey.

One of these videos was about pork belly and the Chinese way of preparing it.

I have an other method I have seen Nigel Slater prepare and that was always my favourit. But I am always open for other recipes.

Preparation time is relatively short, but it takes time to marinate. 12 hours are a must, longer is even better. But that time I had to marinate the pork belly in the other recipe too.

The whole method was a bit strange to me, but the result was amazing.

recipe:
750 g pork belly with bones or not
1 tbsp Chinese cooking wine
1tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp white pepper
1 tsp Chinese 5 spice  (freshly roasted whole spices, ground to a medium fine powder)

Use a double layer of aluminum foil, fold it in half.
Mix the marinate and brush the meat - BUT NOT the skin.
Set it atop the foil and fold the sides up, leaving the skin exposed.
Take 3 or 4 wooden cocktail sticks and pierce the skin very thorough.
Keep the sticks for the next day!

mix:
1 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tsp salt
pinch of baking soda

Brush the skin with the mix. 

Stick in a freezer bag and put in the fridge to marinate 12-24 hours.

Heat up the oven to 200 C.
Put a rack on a baking sheet with some baking paper.
Use the sticks and pierce the skin again.
With a spoon get as much kosher salt on top of the skin to cover it completely. That will prevent it from burning. Let the aluminium foil sit snuggly on the sides.
Put it in the oven for 40 min.

Take the meat out, take the salt off. Take away the aluminium foil.
Set the oven to grill and place the meat back inside the oven for 20 min.

Cut the bones off and enjoy the meat and skin .

5 spice mix:
2 star anise
6 cloves
1 1/2 tsp fennel seeds
2 cinnamon sticks
1 1/2 tsp Szechuan pepper corns

Roast the spices in a dry pan. Chuck into a grinder and blend.