Words and roasted pork by Eng Loy
Kitchen, broiler, chopping board and other kitchen amenities by Mum
Pictures by CY
13 November 2005
Something totally non-photographically-related for once on this photoblog…
Eating Mum’s cooking has always been a delight, as well as the main big reason for an expanding waistline (thankfully for the gym)! One of my favourites among Mum’s cooking would be the roast pork, Chinese-style. Unfortunately, she is frequently frustrated by the unpredictability of roasting pork; at times, she would get the skin crackling just right. On many occasions though, we ended up chewing and gnawing away at the tough pork skin instead! Discouraged on these occasions, she would pronounce that she’ll not attempt to try roasting pork again, that is, until she comes across some heresay technique on how to make good crackling roasted pork skin, including poking holes in the skin prior to roasting, or even bathing the skin in vinegar before marinating the meat!
I came across a roast pork recipe promising crunchy skin every time in the Sunday Times a year ago and passed it to my mum. However, up to now, she has not attempted the methods that were described in the recipe (somehow, I think she would have preferred if the recipe was written in Chinese or if she overheard it some TV/radio programme instead). Given the recent spate of rainy weather in Singapore, there has not been much opportunities for me to go out to take pictures anyway. And since I am on vacation leave anyway with some spare time on my hands…
Following the recipe was simple enough… Mum bought two nice pieces of belly pork from the neighbourhood market on Saturday. Bringing them fresh back home, I proceeded to marinate the pork with a mixture of “five-spices powder”, salt and pepper. According to the recipe, it is essential to salt the meat liberally, as this would draw some of the meat’s juices to the surface and allow it to caramelise nicely. The next important step was to leave the meat skin-side up, uncovered, in the refrigerator no less, for up to a day. This will thoroughly dry out the skin and remove any surface moisture, thus ensuring a crisp skin during roasting.
The actual roasting came on Sunday (yesterday). The actual pre-roasting preparations involved chopping up some thick slices of onions to act as a rack on which the pork was to be placed for roasting.
Next, the “oven” (we don’t have an oven at home, instead, I improvised with a broiler which was pretty handy around for roasting stuff) was preheated to 200 degrees Celsius. In the meantime, I proceeded to rub oil generously into the meat, taking care to coat the scores that had been made into the rind.
The meat was then placed together with the onions in the “oven”.
For the first ten minutes, the meat was seared at 200 degrees Celsius. Next the temperature was turned down to 160 degrees and was roasted for the next hour.
The last step is critical in ensuring the crunchiness of the roasted pork… The temperature was turned all the way up to 250 degrees for the last 15 minutes. This is to ensure that browning of the skin occurs. At the same time, the intensity of the heat will drive the oil out from the skin so as to ensure the nice crunchy results.
The end product is this…
The only thing left to do is to chop the pork up into crunchy, bite-sized pieces which go well with the usual black sweet sauce.
Nice and crunchy roasted pork… Yummy!!
