Braai Life

Recipes / Meat

Slow braai pork belly with crackling

A whole pork belly dried overnight, cooked slowly in a kettle braai over indirect heat, and finished with hard, blistered crackling.

Coals
Low coals
Prep
20 min
On the fire
3 hr
Plan ahead
overnight drying in the fridge, 15 to 25 minutes resting
Serves
6

Ingredients

  • 2.2 kg (4.8 lb) pork belly, skin on, bone-in or a boneless slab
  • 2 tablespoons coarse salt, for the skin
  • fine salt and black pepper, for the meat

Rub for the meat side

  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 1 teaspoon ground coriander
  • 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
  • 1 teaspoon fennel seeds, optional

Baste, optional

  • 80 ml (1/3 cup) honey
  • juice of 1 lemon
  • 1 tablespoon smooth mustard
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander

To serve

  • apple sauce or coleslaw

Method

  1. The day before, score the skin in strips 1.5 cm (1/2 inch) apart. Cut through the skin only, not into the fat or meat.
  2. Rub the coarse salt into the skin and leave it for 1 hour. Rinse the salt off, pat the skin dry, and rub the cumin, coriander, paprika, fennel, fine salt and pepper into the meat side.
  3. Put the belly skin side up on a rack over a tray and leave it uncovered in the fridge overnight, or for at least 2 hours, so the skin dries out.
  4. Light 48 briquettes and divide them into two baskets or piles, 24 on each side of the kettle, with a drip tray between them. Put the lid on and let it reach at least 220°C (430°F).
  5. Lay the belly skin side up in the centre of the grid over the drip tray. Close the lid and leave it alone for 30 minutes while the skin sets. Do not lift the lid.
  6. Close the bottom vents most of the way so the kettle drops to 170 to 190°C (340 to 375°F). Cook for 2 to 2 1/2 hours more, adding a few briquettes to each side every 45 minutes to hold the temperature.
  7. If you are using the baste, mix the ingredients and brush them over the meat side and edges, not the skin, from the 1 hour mark and again every 30 minutes.
  8. Check the crackling. If it is not blistered and hard all over, lift the belly onto a grid skin side down over hot coals for 2 to 5 minutes, watching it the whole time.
  9. Rest the belly skin side up and uncovered for 15 to 25 minutes, then cut into strips along the score lines.

Done when: the crackling is blistered, hard and sounds hollow when tapped, and a thermometer in the thickest part of the meat reads 85 to 90°C (185 to 195°F); 63°C (145°F) is safe for pork but the fat will not have rendered.

Tips

  • Wet skin will not crackle. The overnight drying step is the one that matters most.
  • The traditional side-on method: lean a hinged grid beside a wood fire or ember bed, bone side towards the heat, and cook for about 3 hours, turning the grid now and then and basting from the 1 hour mark. Then lay it skin side down over hot coals for 15 to 20 minutes to blister the skin.
  • Scoring into the fat lets juice bubble up through the cuts and softens the skin. Stop at the skin.
  • Lifting the lid in the first 30 minutes drops the heat and the skin never sets properly.
  • Too much fuel burns the skin before the meat is done. Too little and the fat stays soft. Keep a thermometer in the kettle and another in the meat.
  • Do not cover the crackling with foil while it rests. The steam turns it chewy.

Pork belly is a fairly new arrival on South African braai grids, but it suits the slow, patient style of the fire. The side-on method in the tips borrows from the way Karoo farmers braai lamb flank beside a wood fire rather than over it, letting the heat reach the meat sideways for hours.

The kettle method here is easier to control. Read setting up a kettle braai for the two-zone layout, and safe braai temperatures for why slow cuts are taken well past the minimum.