Siew Yoke (Roast Pork with crackling)

My mother adores The Boy. She also loves to feed him. To give you an example: Once, he casually mentioned that he loves roast pork with crackling. Immediately, the wheels started turning, and she started researching and experimenting with her old recipes for siew yoke* (if you were wondering where I get it from...). My poor father was (happily) the guinea pig of at least three versions of roast pork before it was good enough to be presented to The Boy. Being a true believer that the fastest way to a man's heart is through his stomach (contrary to popular belief), she kindly shared her perfected recipe with me.

* Siew yoke = Chinese roast pork with cracking, often served with rice and other roast meats

Anyway, fast forward to last week. The Nutritionist Nazi informed us that we should not consume, on a normal day, any food that contained more than 20% of fat from calories, and sent us away with a list of information. Perusing the list in the car, I should tell you that almost no beef or pork or lamb of any sort made the cut (excuse the pun). The forced conclusion was that we would have to live with a diet of chicken breast and fish during the week.

But this also meant that there was now cause to celebrate our weekend "cheat" meal. Hence, this post - a tribute to my mother's culinary endeavours and a reward for a week of "good" eating.

Roast pork with crackling is wonderful. You can have it for an Asian meal - it goes well with Braised Cabbage. You can have it for Thanksgiving or Christmas in place of ham, served with apple sauce - children always love the crackling. It is one of those versatile roasts that can be both prosaic and celebratory.

There is much debate what is the best way to achieve crackling. Some like Ellis Handy tout vinegar as their secret ingredient. Others like Gary Rhodes would exhort crackling the rind separately. In our family, we believe simply that the simplest way to achieve the best and tastiest crackling is salt and patience: giving the rind hours and hours to dry out. Hence, this dish should be prepared the day before. We also like to keep the seasoning simple: just pepper and five spice powder. The perfect roast pork should be crispy and crunchy on the top, pink and tender on the inside.

Note: You can get a slab of pork belly with the rind still on at most Asian grocery stores. In Houston, I recommend H-Mart (I-10/Blalock), as always.

RECIPE: SIEW YOKE (ROAST PORK WITH CRACKLING)
Cooking time: 1 hour 15 mins

1 roasting dish with rack

A - Meat
1 slab pork belly with rind

B - Seasoning
2 tsp salt
1 tsp five spice powder
1 tsp pepper

C - Vegetable oil

*****

A - Wipe the meat dry with kitchen paper. Score the rind of the pork belly with a sharp knife.

B - Dry fry the seasoning ingredients for a few minutes. The portions are for 2 lb / 1 kg of meat. Depending on how much meat you have, you may adjust the portions, always keeping the proportion of 2:1:1.

When cooled, rub the seasoning all over the rind of the meat. If there is excess seasoning, leave it - do not rub over rest of meat as, in my experience, this makes the final product too salty.

Leave uncovered in the fridge overnight.

C1 - Heat oven to 290F / 200 C. Put pork with rind facing up on a roasting dish with rack, and roast for 10 minutes.

C2 - Turn temperature down to 320 F / 160 C and roast for a further 1 hour.

C3 - Crackling: Increase temperature to 480 F / 250 C. Using a long spoon, spread some oil on the skin. Don't worry about quantity because the excess oil will just drip and collect below the rack in the roasting dish. Roast for a further 15-20 mins to crackle the skin.

Remove and cool. Alert: Make sure you have all your kitchen windows opened, the kitchen vent turned up to the max and the fire alarm turned off - because a lot of smoke will be coming out of the oven when you open it!