Now that its the season to be jolly and all that stuff I thought I’d share my recipe for perfect pork crackling. Now It should be stated that I’m not a wealthy man, and I don’t own a fancy oven or anything. In fact my oven is basically one of the cheapest you would be able to buy in a retail sense. So you definitely don’t need anything special. But here’s a simple method that will help insure you get a great result almost every time.
WHAT YOU’LL NEED FOR PERFECT PORK CRACKLING
- Pork to roast – I get a piece with a big thick lump of skin on top but not a lot of meat (I’m a batchelor so there’s not a lot of point in getting something huge and this keeps the cooking time down too. Pork belly is pretty good is pretty good for this or a small pork roll.
- Salt – Heaps of it. Any cheap stuff will do though. There’s no point using expensive stuff as you’ll essentially be throwing most of it away.
- Marinade – your choice here, so whatever rocks your boat, use it!
PREPARING YOUR PORK
Take it out of the wrapping and score the crackling with a knife. I go pretty deep almost to the actual flesh and try to keep the scores around 1cm apart. The closer they are the better really. Dab the top side (rind) with a cloth. Remember: Moisture in the crackling is your enemy so it’s best to be as dry as possible going into prep.
Score the underside of the pork (the fleshy part) this will allow the marinade to seep in put your pork into a container that you can keep in the fridge over night dump a heap of marinade in that container. it can be basically swimming in marinade if you so wish but make sure the marinade doesn’t get high enough to seep into the pork rind.
dump a heap of the cheap salt you bought on the skin and spread it over the rind. It should ideally be around 0.5 cm or 0.2 inches thick. it should cover the entire surface of the rind. It should be a bed of salt as shown below.
Now your pork is ready to sit. I recommend keeping it in the fridge for at least 6 hours but a day is even better. It will soak up the marinade and the salt will remove moisture from the rind.
COOKING
Preheat your oven to 240 degrees celcius for around half an hour (maybe less if you have a better oven than me) I find I need to cook the pork for around 30-40 minutes (remember I buy smaller cuts) and then I take it out and dust off the now caked up salt. Generally speaking the crackling should be done or near enough to it that you can either separate the pork from the crackling and leave it in there a few minutes longer or serve as is. I tend to like a juicier roast so I take it out a little earlier and leave the crackling in a few more mins. But it generally always turns out perfect using this method.
for more great thought provoking articles be sure to keep checking back on Bacon Boobs Beer on a regular basis!
