Thursday, March 10 2011

Get In My Belly!

Caution! Tales of rampant carnivorism follow. Gentle readers may wish to choose another source of entertainment.

It was a simpler time, before the invention of cholesterol

Lisa: I’m going to become a vegetarian. 

Homer: Does that mean you’re not going to eat any pork?

Lisa: Yes.

Homer: Bacon?

Lisa: Yes Dad.

Homer: Ham?

Lisa: Dad all those meats come from the same animal.

Homer (sarcastically): Right Lisa, some wonderful, magical animal!

Homer Simpson may not have a good grip on taxonomy, but he sure as shootin' knows where the finest source of meat on the planet hails from: the noble pig.

Tamworth, one of the oldest pig breeds. Cute and delicious

In my unending quest to taste the flesh of every other creature on this planet (except for co-citizens, like cats, dogs, elephants and whales--essentially nothing I could hold a conversation with) I've enjoyed many a nugget of porky goodness. From chops to roasts, pickled feet to tripe, and the mystery of good sausage, I've eaten everything but the squeal.

And I like cooking pork. In addition to mastering the art of perfectly grilled pork (the juice near the bone must be clear, but pink: as soon as it's all white, it's overcooked and loses moisture) I've made sausage, rendered cracklings, and stewed a few trotters, all to my enjoyment. But I've been hearing more and more about pork bellies over the last few years.

It's a cultural meme, albeit one that's becoming a bit misty, that Pork Belly Futures have something to do with commodity trading, to whit: pork belly futures were first traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in 1961. Trading is based on existing supply of frozen pork bellies versus future demand. In summer when people eat lighter, pork belly inventories drop, and so do prices. It's amazing that the mind of bankers can turn anything, even pork flesh into a casino play for money-monkeying. Sigh.

So why are pork bellies so desirable? Well, they're what bacon is made from. 

Bacon tastes gooooooooood

But it's not commodities trading or the putative future existence of frozen bacon I'm interested in. Nope, I keep getting served pork belly in restaurants. First it was ethnic places, like really good Chinese restaurants where pork belly shows up in stir fried dishes, adding savour and richness. Then it was fusion places and fine dining. Finally, I was in Victoria at the Tea Festival and I was served a chunk of pork belly with my breakfast. It was delightful: very tasty, but not like bacon at all--it wasn't brined or smoked, but had great porky flavour.

When I got home, I checked out the internets for pork belly recipes. They were either insanely elaborate, or so simple as to arouse suspicion. I decided that I must pursue pork belly to it's conclusion, and made a vow that I would conquer the making and eating of this luscious treat forthwith. With that in mind, I ran off to T&T Market. I love the place: it's like a little Chinatown market transplanted into the setting of a supermarket. Its exotic spices, hard-to-find ingredients and fantastic seafood all make me a very happy shopper, but what pulls me back is their butcher's case, where I can buy everything from duck gizzards to tripe to some stuff you won't believe gets eaten by anybody. And what they had for me was pork belly, on sale! I grabbed three meaty, bone-in examples and trotted home

Bacon that got away.

Assembling my ingredients, I got ready to rub my belly. There were any number of schemes for prepping and cooking the meat, but the one that attracted me most was the simplest: brown sugar and salt in equal amounts, rubbed into the meat for 12 hours before a long slow cook in dry heat.

Rubbed the right way

I used golden sugar as opposed to real brown sugar, and instead of kosher salt I used sel gris, my standard pantry item. It took about a third of a cup of each to get three generous pieces of pork well rubbed. I covered it, popped it into the refrigerator and pulled it out after work the next day.

Nearly there . . .

It was amazing how much liquid came out from three relatively solid pieces of meat, with the salt drawing it out of the tissues. This is a crucial step, because lowering the amount of water in the flesh would make it denser and richer when it was finished cooking. Also, the liquids brought out amino acids and other compounds from the interior of the meat to the outside, where the Maillard reaction that comes from things browning in the heat, would bring out lots of really good flavour.

Then it was into my little countertop convection oven (lovingly known as 'The Conniption Oven'). Low and slow is the ticket for gnarly, fatty meat like this, laden with connective tissue and bones, so I turned it on to 260F for nearly five hours.

Someday I'm going to broil me some pizza cookies, just to see what they're like.

I didn't want the bottom to burn with all that sugar, so I popped to porky pieces up on a rack above the tray. This would also allow any extra liquid to drip out so they roasted rather than braised.

That brown liquid looked a lot like Coca-Cola. Didn't taste as good with rum, though.

I looked at it every 90 minutes or so. It seemed to take a very long time, which I guess five hours represents, sure enough. When I judged it done I ramped up the temperature to 400F for ten minutes to get some good crispy action on the outside. When I pulled it out, it looked like this.

Oh . . . oh my, yes.

It looked brilliant: gleaming, mahogany hued and glossy, and it smelled fantastic. Not like bacon, precisely, but not like a pork chop either. It was much richer smelling than any other cut of pork I've ever cooked. I cut into it while it was still sizzling (yes, it should have rested for ten minutes. Sue me, I'm greedy)

A handful of goodness

It was a lot leaner than you might expect, and a significant amount of fat rendered off, but it's still incredibly rich, and the fat isn't disagreeable in any way. The Food-Industrial Advertising Complex has tried to teach modern people that eating fat is drinking gasoline or stabbing yourself with knitting needles. The truth is, fat tastes delicious, and dietary fat is necessary for health. Fat-free foods are a poison to the body and corrosive to the soul.

And did I mention that the fat on this stuff is incredibly delicious? Porky and luscious and perfect, with meat that melts like fudge on your palate, a hint of cleanly smoky goodness, mild sweetness and just enough salt to make a pork chop happy, it's perfect sliced and fried in a pan until just heated through and then served with eggs or beside pancakes, or in a tomato sandwich, or tossed in a salad, or shared with a very fat and happy kitty cat.

It may well be one of the most successful things I've ever cooked, and it's so blindingly simple I'm not sure I'll ever buy plain old bacon again. Certainly not with good quality bacon at ten bucks a pound and pork bellies for $2.99!

Posted by Fat Timster AT 4:47PM

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