A SPECIAL CHRISTMAS ROAST PORK

Christmas is around the corner, and I was asked to make a siu yoke, but with a western twist. So having made porchetta before, I decided to work some of the porchetta's marinade into this.

Ingredients

2kg pork belly

4 tablespoons honey

1 teaspoon cinnamon

4 tablespoons of chopped fresh rosemary

1 whole garlic, chopped

1 tablespoon coarse black pepper

The zest of one orange

The juice of one orange

2 teaspoons of sea salt (for the marinade)

2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar

Method

Clean the pork belly, and make sure there's no bristles on the skin.

With a sharp meat pricker, prick the skin side of the pork belly. The more pricks, the better. ( that sounds so wrong! ;-) )

Mix all the ingredients to form a paste

With the tip of a sharp knife, make tiny cuts into the flesh side of the pork belly.

Rub the paste on the flesh side of the pork belly, and make sure to have the marinade into the tiny cuts that you made earlier. This way the flavour has a much better chance of penetrating the meat.

Now, rub some salt on the skin and let the meat air dry for 5 hours. While that is happening, you will notice water on the skin. I usually wipe the water off every hour and rub salt again. This is to draw moisture out so you will get a good, crispy skin when it's roasted.

Preheat an oven to 180 degree celsius and when the 5 hours are up, put it in and let it roast at that temperature for the first hour. 

Set the temperature at 150 degree celsius for the second hour and 200 degree celsius for the third hour.

Take the meat out after the third hour and baste the skin with vinegar, put it back into the oven, set the temperature to 250 degree celsius and let it cook until the meat is slightly charred. Don't worry about the charring, as you will be able to scrape it off when the meat is cooled.

When it's done, take it out of the oven and let it rest for 30 minutes before scraping the charred bits off and you're ready to serve!

I know it's a tedious process, but the end result is well worth the effort. What you will get is a really crispy skin and a really tender flesh under the crackling. This will be an impressive dish to have on your Christmas dinner table!

Enjoy!