Pork Belly, A Cure For Loneliness!

If you know me, which you probably don't yet, you know that I am not the best at being alone. Sure I like my personal time, but days of isolation and solitude are not my cup of tea. I live with my girlfriend for a reason, I like having her around, and if not her you can typically find me with friends. So while she has been gone all week in Vegas for work, lucky, I have been home...suffering. OK, suffering may be a bit dramatic, but it is certainly not my favorite and I needed something to lift my spirits. As I racked my brain for methods to subdue my turmoil, I decided that making pork belly for dinner, which is not something I have done before, would be a wonderful way to make me smile and fill my ever hungry belly. While I wouldn't normally try to make something on such a whim, I find that food is great cure for most emotional ailments and making something special really seems to do the trick. I was aimlessly walking through the grocery when I saw the package at the grocery for only $5, so I figured it was meant to be. Not to mention, pork belly isn't exactly on the gf's "approved menu", so while she is usually pretty willing to try new things, this seemed like as good an opportunity as any to give it a shot.

Now, if you're unsure whether or not you would like pork belly from my minimal intro, I can tell you that the easy answer is yes. Pork belly is basically really thick cut bacon, and in my experience, I haven't found many people that don't like bacon! The real difference is that bacon is cured and usually smoked, so a lot of the flavor you taste comes from that process and not the meat itself. With pork belly you get a much meatier taste, and you can control what the end result tastes like from the spices and seasonings you decide to add throughout the cooking process. This time around I wanted to go with an Asian vibe. I'm a big fan of Asian flavors, probably my favorite when it comes to cooking, and I make a number of dishes with a similar flavor profile that have been crowd pleasers. I also used to get lunch from a Korean spot in Parsippany, NJ that had a similar pork belly offering, so I felt confident in the combo even though I was kinda making it up as I went. Full disclosure, I did forget to take a photo but I'm hoping my description may win a few of you over. I'll be sure to take photos in the future but this time I was half way through eating before I even thought to write this all down. I'm sure I will make it again in the future and will try and get a couple of pics before I eat it all.

Hope you enjoy!

Ingredients:

• .5 lb. of Pork Belly (that's what I used but this quantity of sauce should work for up to 1-2 lbs. as I had a solid amount left over)

• 1/4 cup of honey

• 1/4 cup of soy sauce

• 1 tbsp of hoisin sauce

• 1 tsp of sesame oil

• 2-4 cloves of minced garlic (really just depends on how much you like garlic, I'm always a little heavy)

• 1/4 of a fresh lemon (I just cut part of the side off)

• S & P (I add this when I'm cooking the pork belly but if you are sensitive to sodium I'd leave it out, you get plenty of salt from the soy sauce)

• Sesame seeds (for garnish)

• Green onions (for garnis)

Cooking Directions:

1. Start by talking your pork belly and cutting it into slices, about 1/4 inch each. While you can leave the skin on, for this dish, I recommend cutting off the skin before cooking as it will require a longing cooking time. (*if you don't want to wast the skin, I will include my recommendation for cooking at the bottom*)

2. Throw your chopped pork belly into a cold pan and put over medium heat, season with salt and pepper. If you see the meat browning too quickly, lower the heat a bit to allow the fat in the pork belly time to render.

3. While the meat is cooking, combine your honey, soy sauce, hoisin sauce, sesame oil, chopped garlic, and lemon in a bowl and whisk together. Set this aside until the meat is done cooking.

4. Once your pork belly is done cooking, remove the meat from the pan and dispose of the remaining grease safely.

5. Over low heat, add your sauce into the pan that the pork was cooking in and allow it to simmer for about 2-4 minutes until it begins to thicken.

6. Once the sauce has thickened a bit, turn off the heat and add the pork belly back into the pan. Toss the pork belly in the sauce until it is fully coated and you are ready to eat!

I typically serve it over rice but you could also eat on it's own or with vegetables if you want. I also love to put some chopped scallions on top and a little sweet chili sauce for an extra sweet and spicy kick.

If you love pork like me you have probably been wondering what to do with the skin we cut off earlier. What I like to do is to lay it out on a baking sheet and rub it with a little bit of butter. I then sprinkle the skin with salt, pepper, rosemary, thyme and some garlic powder and pop it in the oven at 375 for about an hour. It takes a little while but the skin comes out super crispy and is a wonderfully flavorful treat for the chef when cooking any pork product that still has skin on it.