Sunday, December 27, 2009

Christmas Eve Dinner: Pork Belly

Christmas Eve dinner 2009 is one of the most delicious dinner I ever hosted. Primarily because the two highlight of the dinner, roasted pork belly and turkey turned out so so well. I want to share it with you guys.

For this year's dinner, we started preparing early. Both pork belly and turkey was bought and marinated the night before. Pork belly was bought fresh from a gourmet butchery , thick with fatty deposits, a 2kg heavy treasure. This is good meat. Gotta respect it. Just three simple ingredients will do: salt (go heavy), rosemary (don't be stingy) and a single clove of garlic crushed into pulp. Rub them all over the belly, favouring the inside. Tie it into a cute little log, wrap it and keep it in the fridge overnight. Let the belly breathe in the marinate.

I was told that if you prickle the skin, cover it with pokey holes, it will crisp when roast. I think in this way the fats will ooze out from the multiple poke holes to crackle the skin. But I did not poke those holes. I suspect you'd need a special equipment for it, I don't think satay sticks would do the job. The skin is super tough!

The next morning I put it in the oven to roast at 240 degree Celsius for 110 minutes. And roast it did.

Guess what. I collected a ramekin full of this awesome pork oil from the crackling fatty belly. I'm going to use it for the spaghetti later. Yumm.

Turkey was beautiful as well. So beautiful that I failed to be quick enough to snap a picture of it before it was sliced into many pieces. That was an excuse, haha. I completely forgot about the pictures! (hey! the turkey was really good. juicy and full of flavour unlike the dry and bland one we bought last year...) Happens when I'm too excited. Therefore, the rest of the dinner was undocumented. Until after much later that my mum got her camera out.

Aftermath.


End.

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