Traditional Cantonese Crispy Roast pork belly – Siu Yuk, 脆皮烧肉, is my daughter favourite of all Chinese roast dishes. She can never have enough of Cantonese Crispy Roast Pork Belly aka Siu Yuk and will eat it everyday if she could.

However normally after marinating and roasting it all day, after the cleaning up I find I am only able to manage a few pieces.

Actually Cantonese Crispy Roast Pork Belly is not hard to make. It just takes a bit of time love and attention. I have actually done a few steps by steps posts in the past but I have since lost my old blog so here’s a new updated one.

I do not often order this dish in restaurants outside as I find them only having one taste – salty! That is NOT how a traditional Cantonese Crispy Roast Pork belly should taste like! Well not to me anyway The layer on salt on top type and wrapping with tin foil is NOT a traditional Cantonese Crispy Roast pork belly to me too. I cannot think what to do with the salt after nor wonder how the bottom can get nicely roasted if on tin foil.

While the pork belly is going through it stages be it salting or marinating you can go gardening, shopping, clean out your fridge freezer for examples. kekekekekeke or just have coffee and Facebook catch up.

TIP – The hot water on the skin not only tightens it but helps in giving you a crispy skin.

TIP – The salting of the pork draws out the water in the skin and makes it more crispy.

TIP : Only poke the skin, skin deep NOT onto the fat layer. The more holes the nicer the skin.

TIP : When roasting place the tray into your oven first then fill the bottom tray with a kettle of boiled water. This help to catch the oil dripping down and keep the pork belly very juicy.

IMPORTANT – You might need to add more water to your tray halfway!

Update: 7th April 2021- Recently due to Covid19 lockdown I have been purchasing pork belly from Costco. I prefer to go around dinner time, less people then. The pork slabs weigh just about/under 2kg a piece. My daughter have been learning to make traditional Cantonese roast pork and these pieces took about an hour to roast in a fan oven with top heat at 200C

Try to chose the pork with a firm skin and not floppy skin with creases. Firm skin makes the best crispy top.

1. We have been making it in the afternoon, then after marinating the bottom, with the skin still dry on a piece of cloth, leave it to marinate overnight
2. Wrap with cling film (because I do not like my fridge to smell of 5 spices) and put it in the fridge overnight.
3. The next day flip it over, remove the cloth and let the skin dry for a day. Would be better if you can out it in the sun.
4. Roast it in the late afternoon and eat the next day. The skin will still be very crunchy if you do not seal it. Just cover with a net cover and leave it in a cool place. In my case it is my kitchen as I do not have heating on there.

My daughter has just about managed to make this on her own. I will buy a few more pieces of pork for her to try a few more times. I get to ‘goyang kaki’ too – kekekekeke

The weather has been pants this last week. I have just taken into the house my baby okra plants as it has been quite cold and they are still not quite strong enough yet. It has been drizzling on and off the whole week but today is the worst! All day drizzling with the temperature just 13°C!

So today is a great day to have something with wine and ginger. My friend gave me a jar of home brewed glutinous rice wine. Today is the perfect day to use it up! I have a corn fed chicken and I am going to cook half of it.

Harvested some gigantic spring onions to add to my pot of yum.

I started making Bak Kwa on my second year in UK. I was so desperate to eat. I remembered making it in the middle of winter. There was no sun to be seen. What to do? Needs must. ? I rolled and used the oven to bake them. Once I actually lighted the BBQ in the snow  as I was too fussy. To me baked in oven just do not taste the same! I wanted that slightly burnt taste that only  BBQ from charcoal can give. Thinking back I could only laugh at my greediness. Then there was a year where I taught all my Facebook friends to make bak kwa and my Facebook news page were dotted with bak kwa pics from all over UK, France and even across the pond from the US. All my friends were making bak kwa. To read more about Bak Kwa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakkwa

Fast forward some 20 years and now making it is a lot easier because I have a nice back garden space that I can use. Also practice makes perfect. Having outside water pipe to wash helps too. Nowadays I make them only in the summer. I have sorta developed the easiest way for me to do it too. I now vacuumed sealed them and freeze for those times when I feels like eating with home made bao buns.

I have made four batches of 3 kg mince each in total for this summer thus far. I have send some to friends who have not been fortunate enough to balik kampung for awhile as a treat. This is my recipe that I have developed over the years. Please use it as a guide and adjust to your taste. I find that my taste have changed from the time when I used to make with a relative every Chinese New Year to sell in Ipoh, Malaysia. Those were the days. It’s like another lifetime ago ……..

This post is more about the TIPs and way of making rather than the perfect recipe. I will give you my preferential recipe of course. Please refer to each pic for explanations and TIPs. Enjoy.

p/s I prefer mine to be tougher, fatter and chewy but the hubby prefer his softer and easier to eat but no fat – What’s your preference?

JULY 5, 2018 BY ADMIN