When God Gives you Pork Belly…

I cook 2 ways… well maybe 3. Sometimes I follow recipes from cook books other times I open my refrigerator (and pantry) and basically just pull out a bunch of ingredients that I think will go together and make a dish. The third way I cook is if I am in a professional kitchen, although, I am not sure if that is considered cooking or following orders from a drill sergeant. I am not going to lie to you, many times when I pull a bunch of things from the refrigerator and create something the result is subpar. Tonight was not one of those nights; I threw together a fabulous dish that I don’t think I would modify.


One of my problems (that I am trying to fix) is feeling the necessity to use every ingredient that I initially select. But tonight I was (thankfully) able to restrain myself. Do you see that reddish beet in the above photo? I decided not to use it. Mind you, I have never cooked a beet in my life and after I sautéed it in some pork fat, I 86ed it for the night.


This dish was inspired by 3 things: my new favorite Asian market, David Chang’s left over Pork Belly (see Pork Buns post) and Kittichai which is the current (modern thai) restaurant that I work for. In addition to my three muses, I was very pleased to see some German beer in the refrigerator (My pops must have bought it).


The dish was pretty straight forward: Sautéed pork belly lardoons, with bok choy, white mushrooms and kimchi (thanks David Chang). The glaze consisted of about a tea spoon of ginger/garlic paste, Sambal, oyster sauce, a dash of soy sauce and a few drops of sesame oil. Oh yeah, remember that pork fat that I saved from the roasted pork belly? Yeah, that was used to sauté everything. No wonder, I enjoyed this dish so much!

Momofuku Pork Buns

So about a week and half ago I discovered the most amazing Asian market. Personally, I have always loved Asian markets because they are always open and their food is always 30-40% cheaper than conventional supermarkets. Another reason, this markets rocks is because they have lots of fresh fish and all sorts of pig parts. I found a bunch of beautiful looking pork bellies and just had to buy one. For those of you who are not familiar with pork belly, it is the same cut of meat that bacon and pancetta is made from. Bacon is usually cured in salt and then smoked, while pancetta is rolled up into a cylinder and simply cured with salt and other spices. David Chang’s pork bun recipe from the Momofuku cook book calls for a quick salt and sugar cure followed by slow roasting the belly. I have cooked many dishes from this cook book and was especially excited about this dish because it is considered one of Chang’s signature menu items. Inspiration for this recipe was not only found in Chang, one of my favorite blogs, momofukufor2 also made this dish.


Before getting started I had to take off the skin. To do this, I basically slid my knife between the skin and top layer of fat and tried to pull the skin away from the flesh in one continuous even slice. I have never done this before so my technique was far from perfect, but I managed to get the job done.

I let my belly sit in the refrigerator for about 10 hours with a salt and sugar mixture, then washed the mixture off and let it sit for about another 10 hours. In the morning, I roasted the belly for about 3 hours at 300 degrees and then finished it at 450 for about 15 minutes to give it some color. I saved the liquefied piggy fat in a pint container for future use. Pork fat, can be used in a variety of ways. It’s basically a meaty substitute for butter.

Once you roast the belly and make Chang's quickly salted Kirby pickles, the assembly is easy. I gathered my mies en plas together, rested my belly and steamed my buns. That’s right. I steamed my buns! I don’t own a steamer so I made a ghetto one. Basically, I put a pot of boiling water on the stove with a metal strainer on top and slapped a lid on it. Sometimes macgyvering it up in the kitchen is so satisfying.







The result was a pretty tasty lunch with my dad. The soft pillowy buns balanced out the salty fatty goodness of the pork. We saved half of the belly for another dish. I am thinking about pork belly Saam next!