It's been a while since I have cooked pork belly. I normally buy about half a metre of it from my favourite butcher, who cuts it to the length I need. I have a big, expensive cast iron Frog-made pot, and the lid is the perfect thing for cooking belly in. I just get him to cut me a slab that just fits into the lid.
I like pork belly because it is really just a big slab of crackling with a thin smear of meat underneath it. It's easy to cook, tastes great and everyone (bar the vegetable-heads) loves it.
But today, I screwed up royally. I was not paying attention and I got smoked pork belly. No matter what I did to it, the bloody crackling would just not crackle. I have lately become a master of the crackling, but none of the usual tricks worked.
As an aside, I normally score the skin with a very sharp knife, then pour a truckload of salt over it. I then go and put my feet up with a book, or read a blog, or kill some time in some stupid manner or another.
Then I wipe of the salt and all the water that has been extracted using a paper towel, and I salt it again. After more water comes out, I wipe off the excess salt, rub in any herbs that I am bothering to use and then stuff it into an oven that should be hot enough to vaporise your eyebrows.
I have cookbooks that talk about using salt, not using salt, rubbing in oil, rubbing in vinegar and all sorts of things, but this is the one method that works for me. It also keeps me up all night drinking water, as it gives me about a months intake of salt in one meal.
Smoking absolutely screws up the skin. Yes, it tastes good, and all that, and it would have been perfect for a pea and ham soup, but I wanted crackling! So did the kids. I failed them.
The only answer is to do another pork roast this weekend. It's lamb tomorrow night, so Sunday will have to be pork. And lots of it.
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