Stuffed Pork Belly

Most of the dishes that I cook in my viennese home are influenced by so many cultures like the philippine, spanish,chinese, viennese, american and many more.

I´m very thankful to my mother for teaching me to cook at an early age of nine. You may be asking why so early? Well... you see, I have five brothers, I´m the 4th and  in the middle with three older and two youger siblings.

I couldn´t blame my mom  when she always asked me to stay beside her in the kitchen. There was no way for her to get any of my brothers to stand infront of the stove  to peel those potatoes and onions, LOL!

While my brothers were playing outside, I  was busy in the kitchen getting instructions and tips on the basics of cooking plus a bit of home economics. Everytime I look back,  I couldn´t help but smile!

Those are pretty memories that will never be forgotten by me...
I´m so so glad I´ve had those cooking basics that my mom insisted me to learn.

Now let´s go to the recipe...

Here , I´ll show you how I prepare the Stuffed Pork Belly.. I cook this dish only on a weekend because I have more time to prepare this at home if I´m not working..

Stuffed Pork Belly

Ingredients: 

1.5 kg pork belly 

 bread cubes..( I used dried 
ones about 4 cups)

1 pc egg 

375 ml milk 

30 g butter 

1 medium size onion - diced

salt 

Parsley 

2 crushed garlic cloves

ground pepper 

1 tsp caraway seeds

cooking oil 

Preparations:

Stuffing: 

1.  Sauté the onion in a frying pan with 1 tbsp cooking oil til golden brown. Place the bread cubes in a bowl, add the milk, egg, salt, onion and parsley, mix properly til the egg covers the bread, leave to soak. When the milk is fully absorbed, mix again til and set aside for stuffing the pork belly.

2. Rub the belly meat with the crucshed garlic, salt and pepper. Then make a pocket-like slot cutting the middle part of the pork belly avoiding to cut the sides thoroughly. Fill the bread mixture into the pocket closing the opening with metals sticks or toothpicks or if you like, you may tie the the pork belly all over with a cotton thread to close the opening. 

3. Fill the oven pan with water and place  the stuffed pork belly with the skin 
downwards soaking in water. Roast at 250°C/482°F  for about 20 minutes. When the skin is boiled and cooked in the pan water, the skin will become soft and eventually would pop out when roasted and will become crispy.

4. Take out the meat, place it on a chopping board, cut the skin with a knife just like making a grid cutting, rub the skin with caraway seeds and give it back to the oven pan. Add 1 tbsp of cooking oil to the water and roast the meat at 220°C/428°F. 

From time to time, pour the juice over the meat so that it doesn´t get dry... say about every 20 minutes. If the juice become lesser, add 1 cup of water to continue roasting for about 1 1/2 hours.

Note :
Remember, the water/liquid determines the amount of gravy you would want to have for the meat, so if the liquid gets lesser add a cup each time during roasting. To make the gravy thicker you may add a tbsp of  flour dissolved in 3 tbsp water. You may also add 1 tbsp of creme fraiche, garlic powder and more pepper according to your taste..
Serve hot... when serving, you may add cooked rice or raosted potatoes according to your preference... but the bread stuffing should be sufficient as by-dish.

The rule of the thumb is ...for every kilo of pork belly,  roasting time is for an hour.

      Enjoy cooking this !

This post is linked to:
google+ communities- Food Bloggers