SIU YOKE

Crispy skin that stays crispy, even at least 4 hours after cooking, meat so tender it almost melts in your mouth. That is how good this siu yoke is! Making siu yoke is not rocket science, almost anyone can make this. But it takes too much time, and that's what puts people off making this, I guess.

Ingredients

2kg pork belly
3 cubes of red fermented bean curd
1 tablespoon chinese five spice powder
1 tablespoon pepper
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon chinese wine
sea salt
rice wine vinegar

Method

With a meat pricker, make as many holes as you can on the skin side of the pork belly. This is especially important if you want to have a nice, level and crunchy skin. I find that doing this while the meat is frozen helps as sometimes when the meat pricker is not sharp enough, it is difficult for it to pierce the skin deep enough.
Using sea salt, liberally rub it into the skin, giving the meat a massage so good it puts your massage therapist to shame;-)

Mix the salt, chinese wine, fermented bean curd cubes, five spice powder and pepper into a paste and rub it into the flesh side of the meat.

Now it's time to let it sit a well ventilated place for 4 to 5 hours. You will notice lots of moisture on the skin. Wipe it off with a paper towel and massage more salt into the skin. Repeat as necessary, as every time you wipe off the moisture, some salt gets wiped off too. The salt draws moisture off the skin, so it helps the skin to remain crispy even after cooking.

Preheat an oven to 200 degree celsius.
When the 4 hours are up, skewer the meat. This is to prevent the meat from shrinking too much while cooking.
For the first hour, cook the meat at 180 degree celsius.
For the second hour, cook the meat at 150 degree celsius.
For the next half hour, increase the temperature to 200 degree celsius.

Now, take the meat out and baste it with the rice wine vinegar.
put it back into the oven, up the temperature to 250  degree celsius and wait for the skin to char. Don't worry if the skin's a little burnt. You will be scraping it off later.

When the skin is slightly burnt, it's time to take it out of the oven and let it sit for 30 minutes.
When the 30 minutes are up, you can scrape the burnt bits off the skin, remove the skewers and chop up the meat. Be sure that you have a very sharp knife when you do this, because the meat will be so tender that it would fall apart if excessive force is used.

This customer wanted it to be chopped into 4 pieces, so I can't show you what it looks like after chopping it to smaller pieces, but it's always best to chop it into chunks. That way you get to enjoy more of the crispy skin and the melt in your mouth goodness of the flesh!

Enjoy!