Siu Yuk

Cantonese crisp roast pork belly: the flesh rubbed with five-spice and the skin dried for a day, salted, then blasted until it blisters into a sheet of glass that shatters under the cleaver

Origin: Guangdong, China

From the journey of Star Anise.

Siu yuk hangs beside the char siu and the roast duck in every Cantonese siu mei shop, and it is judged on one thing above all: whether the skin has blistered into an even sheet of brittle bubbles that shatters when the cleaver goes through. Everything about the method serves that end. The seasoning is a study in separation. Five-spice, in which star anise leads, is rubbed hard into the flesh side along with salt, sugar, and wine, and it perfumes the meat right through. The skin side gets nothing but salt and, in most recipes, a wash of vinegar. No spice, no sugar, no marinade whatsoever touches the skin, because anything on it will burn before the fat beneath has rendered and will stop the surface from puffing evenly. A cook who rubs five-spice over the whole joint produces a dark, leathery, disappointing crust. The drying is the second half of the technique and cannot be rushed. Skin must be bone dry before it meets heat: uncovered in the refrigerator for a full day, sometimes two, until it feels like parchment. Water in the skin turns to steam, and steam gives a tough chewy rind rather than a brittle one. The result is the clearest demonstration of what star anise does in Cantonese cooking. The fat is enormous and the skin is pure crackling, and the spice cuts through both. Eaten with nothing but a little mustard and sugar, or over rice, it is one of the great pieces of butchery cookery anywhere.

Ingredients

Pork

1.5 kg pork belly in one piece, skin on, ribs removed, of even thickness

Flesh rub

2 tsp five-spice powder
2 tsp fine sea salt
1 tsp caster sugar
1 tsp white pepper, ground
1 tbsp Shaoxing wine
2 cubes white fermented bean curd, mashed (optional)

Skin

2 tbsp white rice vinegar
3 tbsp coarse sea salt, for the crust

To serve

2 tbsp English mustard and caster sugar, to serve

Method

Bring a kettle to the boil and pour it slowly over the skin side of the belly, held over the sink. Pat completely dry.
Turn the belly flesh side up and score the flesh, not the skin, in a criss-cross about 1 cm deep. Rub in the five-spice, salt, sugar, pepper, wine, and bean curd if using.
Wipe the skin scrupulously clean of any stray marinade, brush it with the vinegar, and set the belly skin side up, uncovered, in the refrigerator for 24 hours.
Heat the oven to 160°C. Wrap the sides and base of the belly in foil so only the skin is exposed, prick the skin all over with a skewer or fork, several hundred times, and set it on a rack over a tin.
Pack a thick even layer of coarse salt over the whole skin surface and roast for 1 hour 10 minutes.
Take it out, lift off the salt crust in one piece, brush away every grain, and raise the oven to 240°C.
Return the belly to the top of the oven for 25 to 30 minutes until the skin has puffed and blistered all over into a pale golden sheet.
Rest 15 minutes, then chop through into 2 cm strips with a heavy cleaver, skin side up.

Notes

Five-spice, in which star anise is the leading component, goes on the flesh only. Nothing but salt and vinegar touches the skin. Ask the butcher for a rectangular piece of even thickness with the ribs removed and the skin unscored, since supermarket belly is often pre-scored and unusable for this. The 24-hour uncovered drying is the step most often skipped and the one that most often ruins the result. Any softness in the finished rind can be rescued under a hot grill for a few minutes, watching constantly. Leftovers keep three days and the skin can be re-crisped in a hot oven; it does not microwave.

The Gastrographer

Name: Siu Yuk
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 1 h 40 min
Total time: 26 h
Yield: 6
Cuisine: China
Ingredients: 1.5 kg pork belly in one piece, skin on, ribs removed, of even thickness; 2 tsp five-spice powder; 2 tsp fine sea salt; 1 tsp caster sugar; 1 tsp white pepper, ground; 1 tbsp Shaoxing wine; 2 cubes white fermented bean curd, mashed (optional); 2 tbsp white rice vinegar; 3 tbsp coarse sea salt, for the crust; 2 tbsp English mustard and caster sugar, to serve

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Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control