SIO BAH



See. I CAN cook after all. Haha! In a desperate attempt at achieving nostalgia.. ta daaa...

- 1 kg Pork Belly (wash and pat very dry). Use a knife and poke the skin all over and also on the meat side, across the length of the meat

- 2 tbsp salt, for rubbing on pork skin

- 4 tbsp white vinegar, for brushing on pork skin at 20 minutes into roasting

Marinade

1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp Chinese 5-spice powder
1 tbsp white pepper
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsps rice wine

Method

1) Rub marinate all over the meat side of the pork belly.

2) Place pork belly with the skin facing up on an aluminium foil-lined baking tray.

3) Rub 2 tbsp salt all over the skin.

4) Place uncovered in the refrigerator overnight until an hour before roasting. This should dry out the pork skin.

5) Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celcius or about 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Have both the upper and lower heating elements as well as the fan in the oven on.

6) After 20 - 30minutes, brush the white vinegar onto the skin. This really accelerates the cooking process on the pork skin and makes it crackle with bubbles or blisters all over. Open the oven door once in a while for about 10 seconds to let in some fresh air and then closed it back.

7) Whenever the oil accumulates on the skin, use some kitchen towels to dab it, so that the skin can remain dry and gets crispy

8 ) You have to monitor the pork quite often by looking at the progress of the skin in getting crispy. The total time it takes for the skin to get really light and crispy will depend on your oven and how dry the skin was before roasting. The pork skin needs to get charred and burnt (really BLACK not just a healthy singe) in order for the skin to become really crispy all the way through. If not, the skin will turn out hard and will be damn hard to bite. The burnt parts are surprisingly easy to scrape off using a knife with a serrated edge! To be honest, I had accidentally burnt mine pretty badly and thought that I had waster my belly pork but as you can see from the picture the burnt parts were removed quite well hor...