topic Re: Pork Belly in Recipes

Pork Belly

Mom2Dogs — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 13:09:28 GMT

...I know what area of the pig it comes from but when looking on line one description said fatty, another said quality.

Have any of you cooked with this meat? I was looking at a smoked pork belly recipe.

thanks

Re: Pork Belly

Zhills — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 13:24:42 GMT

Think slab bacon! Uncured.

Re: Pork Belly

Sooner — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 13:56:59 GMT

Bacon, yes. Pork Belly no. It's a big glob of fat with a little lean meat.

Re: Pork Belly

Mom2Dogs — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 14:02:42 GMT

@Sooner Thanks, good to know...the recipe looked good but I was suspicious of the meat.

Re: Pork Belly

mare54 — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 14:31:42 GMT

Pork butt is good.

Re: Pork Belly

Kachina624 — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 14:32:11 GMT

I hate fatty meats. Tried a sandwich made from this meat once and couldn't eat it. Awful. Pure fat.

Re: Pork Belly

Krimpette — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 14:58:51 GMT

I watch a few cooking shows. Every time they show pork belly (and it's a lot these days, it seems), it almost turns my stomach. It looks like you would be eating pure fat, I love bacon, but not thick fat of pork belly. Maybe it's better than I think, since I've never tried it!

Re: Pork Belly

Scooby Doo — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 15:19:26 GMT

@mare54 wrote:
Pork butt is good.

That what I use.

Re: Pork Belly

beckyb1012 — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 15:22:38 GMT

@Scooby Doo wrote:
@mare54 wrote:
Pork butt is good.
That what I use.

I adore pork butt.

Re: Pork Belly

Sooner — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 15:31:26 GMT

@Mom2Dogs Well, just use a different pork (tenderloin or pork loin roast, or country ribs even?) and adjust cooking time. I'll bet it would be even better!

Re: Pork Belly

PA Mom-mom — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 16:19:16 GMT

@Mom2Dogs I think smoked pork belly sounds delish! I only buy pork belly when we make our own bacon. It's very time consuming. You have to salt and season it (and use just a tiny bit of saltpeter), wrap in plastic and let it sit in the refrigerator for about 7 days, flipping it over several times. Then you smoke it and slice it into bacon strips. There are other techniques out there, but that's what we do. A whole pork belly is so big you need to cut it in half to make it easier to brine. You can get smaller pork belly cuts in the grocery store or from the butcher.

Re: Pork Belly

rms1954 — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 16:35:47 GMT

Oh no never.

Re: Pork Belly

RedTop — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 17:09:41 GMT

@Mom2Dogs
Yes, being raised on a farm where we raised and butchered our own pork, I have cooked, and eaten many pounds of this meat in my lifetime.

To us, pork belly was referred to as slab bacon, fat back, or streak-ed meat. It was sliced, peppered and fried in a cast iron skillet on the wood stove, and is the meat that provided the most fat drippings for seasoning other foods, and was used in the making of a pan of lye soap.

We ate this fried meat on homemade biscuits for any meal of the day, and never tired of it. Eggs were fried in the fat, and the flour for milk gravy was browned in this fat. This is the perfect cut of pork to make homemade pork rinds, and I was eating them long before I ever heard the name or saw a bag of pork rinds in a store. I was more familiar with seeing slices of this meat on a platter, or chunks of this meat in the middle of the bowl of beans, the fried cabbage or bowl of greens on the supper table.

In recent years I have seen TV chefs fawn over this tender meat, season it on both sides, and bake it, and serve in slices with fancy trimmings on the plate. To me, that meat just needs to be slapped into a hot skillet, fried and served on a biscuit!

Re: Pork Belly

PA Mom-mom — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 17:24:41 GMT

@RedTop Well, I'm salivating all over my laptop! YUM!

Re: Pork Belly

Zhills — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 19:46:40 GMT

Pork belly, or any pork fat, browned to a crisp, is a real delicacy to a pork lover! Crispy bacon, yum!

Re: Pork Belly

qbetzforreal — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 23:52:53 GMT

@Mom2Dogs- America's Test Kitchen has a recipe for pork belly. It looked good.