RECIPE: Confit Pork Belly
Perfect for Sunday lunch (or any meal, really).
Welcome to another issue of Le Cordon Bong, a newsletter about recreating Michelin star meals at home. You can get in touch with me via the comments or by email. All of the previous content is up on the website (which I personally find to be a a more enjoyable reading experience than the email format).
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Week 7, vol. 2
Welcome new readers!
We’ve got a very easy (and very delicious) recipe this week. This confit pork belly is great because all you need to do at the end is take it out of the fridge and heat it up in the pan for 10 minutes.
That makes this dish extremely versatile, so the rest of your meal can be as simple or as complicated as you want - I had it as a Sunday roast when testing out the recipe, or you can go down the fancy route. It would also go great with the glazed carrots and potato purée from my beef shin recipe.
A few things I hope you’ll take away from this recipe:
Long recipes don’t mean they’re difficult - Yes, this recipe *technically* takes 2 days, but in reality, it’s about 20 minutes of prepping and cooking, and the “cooking” part is placing the pork in a pan and leaving it there.
Curing, confit, and compression are great techniques to enhance textures and flavours - By drawing out water through curing, softening the muscle fibres through a long 8-hour confit, and compressing everything back together, we end up with pork belly that has a beautiful, uniform texture and an intense flavour.
If you do try the recipe, I’d love to hear about it in the comments, or you can hit me up via email. Happy cooking!
Confit Pork Belly
Serves 4
Total time: 2 days / Active time: 20 minutes
For timings, it’s probably easiest to start in the morning on the first day and do the 8-hour cure and 8-hour confit in the same day. Compress overnight, and on the second day, slice into portions, and complete the final cooking stage for either lunch or dinner.
Equipment:
Medium Dutch oven / ovenproof casserole dish / tray - It should just about fit the pork belly
2 x oven trays
Large non-stick frying pan
Ingredients:
1.6kg bone-in pork belly - It seems like a lot of pork, but after we’ve removed the bones and trimmed the edges, it’s a fairly modest portion. Get the best quality pork you can find, as this preparation is very simple and designed to let the flavour of the pork shine through.
500-750g lard - Don’t worry, we’re not eating the lard - it’s just used as the cooking liquid. You may not need all of the lard, depending on how tightly the pork belly fits the cooking vessel. You can also use duck fat for a richer flavour, but lard is far cheaper.
For the curing mix
50g sugar
50g salt
3 tbsp black peppercorns
2 tbsp dried sage - feel free to be creative with other herbs and spices (although strictly speaking, these rubs don’t penetrate very far into the meat, and we’re trimming off all the edges, so there isn’t really that much point in going overboard here).
Method:
Add all the ingredients for the curing mix to a spice grinder or small blender, and grind into a fine powder.
Dry the pork belly with paper towels, and coat evenly with the curing mix. Wrap up tightly in cling film, set on a plate or tray, and leave in the fridge for 8 hours (if you’re pressed for time, as little as 4 hours is fine)
Tricks & Techniques: This is a relatively short cure - we’re not trying to make bacon here, just pushing out some water from the pork to firm up the texture and intensify the flavours.
Remove the pork belly from the fridge. Remove the cling film (which should have some moisture on it), and wipe off the curing mix using paper towels.
Set the oven to 75°C (fan) / 167°F. Place the pork belly skin-side down in a Dutch oven. Melt the lard in a saucepan, and pour over the pork belly so that it covers completely. Place in the oven for 8 hours.
Tricks & Techniques: Home ovens can fluctuate when holding low temperatures for a long time. We’re aiming to cook the pork between 75-80°C, so setting at the lower end reduces the risk of overcooking. An oven thermometer is helpful for knowing exactly what temperature your oven is at.
Also, don’t worry about having to watch the oven constantly - nothing is going to catch fire or burn at such low temperatures.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly (about 30 minutes). Transfer the pork belly to a chopping board, and carefully pull / cut away the bones (I use the scrap bits of meat for pasta sauce). Wrap tightly in parchment paper, sandwich between two oven trays, and place in the fridge. Place some heavy weights (bottles, cans, jars) on the top tray to compress the pork. Leave for 8-12 hours, or overnight.
Maximising Yields: I like turning this dish into a Sunday roast, because it helps to reuse some of the flavourful lard left in the pot (just wait for it to cool and solidify). I use it to braise cabbage, roast potatoes and carrots, and make Yorkshire puddings.
Unwrap the pork - it should be flat and even. Trim off the edges from all 4 sides, and then divide into 4 portions. Wrap in cling film and set aside until ready to serve.
To finish, preheat the oven to 180°C (fan) / 356°F. Place the pork belly skin-side down in a non-stick pan, and place a heavy saucepan on top to weigh down the pork belly (this ensures the skin crisps evenly). Heat on medium-low heat until the skin is crispy, about 7-10 minutes (check every few minutes). Cover the pan loosely with foil, and transfer to the oven for 5 minutes to warm up (be really careful not to overcook and undo all the careful work of the last two days). Serve immediately.
Hi, New to your page but liked this recipe for confit more than any other I’ve seen. Just one question, why confit skin down when almost every other is skin up?