I have a lot of respect for Gordon Ramsay. The other day I was strolling through my newsfeed and a friend shared this video. I opened it and I got so hungry I decided that I should one day try out his recipe. Mind you, I have trouble keeping to recipes. I usually end up tweaking them here but time time I tried my best to stick to it.
One of the things I realised was because there wasn't a recipe written down I had to replay the video over and over and over again just to make sure I didn't forget anything. However, after completing my pork belly I found a website that listed down everything the video said.
This is my first time handling pork belly. I have never handled pork belly ever so the fact that my pork belly came out pretty awesome, I was so happy and excited and over the moon!
My thoughts when cooking the pork belly:
- Oh my gosh, I really do need a sharp knife, I can't cut through the layer of fats at all. HELP. (I ended up sawing through the fats and I couldn't really do a cross to make cubes, only one set of lines across :\)
- Cut through already. CUT!!! Oh shoot, I think it went to deep... nooo.
- -reading through warning signs for roasting pan- Does this mean I can heat this non-stick roasting pan over the fire like what Gordon Ramsay is doing with his metal pan? They don't say I should but they don't say I should either.... (I ended up using it over direct fire, the pan itself was $20 so as long as I didn't burn my house down I wasn't super worried. Plus I didn't get food poisoning so I think it's pretty safe... )
- Stock stock stock... he said stock but what kind? Ah well, I don't really think beef stock would work so chicken it is! Phew~ I got the stock all stocked up (don't you just love puns?)
- My roasting pan is too big!! Pyrex to the rescue!
- Nom nom nom... this pork belly really has a crispy top while the bottom is so soft and tender
And here is the outcome of all the effort I put in! To be honest it was really quite easy. I only regret not letting it cook longer. You can see from the photo that the top is not dry and crispy enough. So here are my own tips if you're trying to use this recipe!
Tips! They are in no way questioning or criticising Gordon Ramsay's recipe or cooking style. It's just little pointers that I realised may help others when trying to make pork belly.
- There are some pork belly with bones so if you want one without bones, be careful when you're at the butcher! They're easily spotted from the cross section and are generally at the bottom layer of the meat. If you see white circles, those are the bones!
- You really really need a sharp knife. No kidding.
- If you're really afraid of the hairs on the skin, use your knife and similar to descaling a fish, run your knife over the top at an angle to cut away the hairs. I ended up plucking some stubborn hairs as well. In Singapore the pork are generally hair free from the butchers, but in Australia, it's a different matter :(
- Know your pork belly. Give it a good smell before any preparation. Gordon Ramsay uses white wine to reduce the smell of the pork, but if your pork didn't have that strong a smell to begin with, don't use too much if not the pork ends up soaking all the flavour of the fennel and onions, but lacks it's good meaty porky flavour.
- To know whether the top is crispy and dry enough (because not every pork belly will turn out as beautiful as Gordon Ramsay's) take a spoon or fork and gently tap the top. It should give a clear hollow sound.
Ta-dah! A picture of the pork belly I made. It doesn't look as amazing as the one made by Gordon Ramsay but it was a great first try! I'm definitely going to try making this recipe again with a few tweaks as well as try the chinese method to make pork belly. This recipe focused on making the skin crispy with the bottom super soft and tender whereas the chinese methods generally make the bottom chewy (like a good chewy, not bubblegum chewy, like some people say, Q). Some places also make the bottom too dry. I know the last time I went to a Spanish restaurant they had double baked pork belly with both the top layer and bottom layer crispy while the middle was chewy (good chewy!). I can't wait to explore more methods to cook pork belly.
Fun fact: Pork belly in Mandarin when translated to English is three layer meat. Because there are distinctly three layers that you can see from the cross section of the pork belly!
No comments:
Post a Comment