Chinese Roast Pork (Sio Bak) using (mainly) airfryer

Today I did the chinese roast pork AKA sio bak again. I did this a couple of times before using both airfryer and oven and I must say it did fluster me quite a bit when I had to keep adjusting timing and temperature settings during the cooking in order to get the nice bubbling crackling going. Well, it could be I tried to adjust too many things during cooking or I didn't really take note of the details I did, that probably ended up me still feeling clueless and apprehensive when I was making this today again.
 

So this time round, I made it a point to note down all the details I did. It was a success! Or maybe I should say 80% success since I definitely overcooked my first piece of pork but it was (luckily!) still juicy and nice, though the appearance could have been much better. My second piece was much better. So here I am, sharing with you in details of what I did. :)

My pork belly with beautiful crackling!



Recipe adapted from: Table for 2 ... or More

 

Ingredients:
- 1 kg pork belly, skin on
-  ⅓- ½ tbsp¹ fine sea salt
- 1 tbsp rice vinegar 
 

Marinade:
- 1 tsp white pepper
- 1 tsp fine sea salt
- 1 clove garlic
- 1 tsp chinese 5 spice
- 2 tsp fermented beancurd
- 2 tsp Shao Xing wine

Mix the marinade ingredients together except for the salt and garlic.



Mince the garlic with the salt in the marinade before adding into the marinade.

Method:

 

1. Mince garlic with a bit of the salt in the marinade.
 

2. Mix with other ingredients in the marinade.
 

3. Cut the 1 kg pork belly into 2 pcs. (else that 1 kg won't fit into the smaller airfryer basket!). You can slice it into half at this point or before airfrying. It does not really make a huge difference. I did mine before airfrying.²
 

4. Wash and rinse pork belly well. Pat dry.
 

5. Lay the pork belly in a glass dish with meat part facing up.
 

6. Rub the marinade seasoning unto the meat part, including the sides.


Rub the marinade seasoning unto the meaty part of the pork belly.

 



7. Turn the pork belly over to have skin face up. Pat the skin dry.

 

8. Poke as many holes as possible in the skin. Use the proper tool for this.³

This is the tool that I use for poking the pork skin. It is about the size of an ice pick and I got it at ToTT.

 

Pat the skin dry. Poke as many holes as possible. This was how my 1 kg looked like.

 

 

Rub the salt into the skin. Pat dry again.



9. Rub the salt vigorously unto the skin only. Pat dry any moisture from the skin.

 

10. Chill the marinaded pork uncovered, skin side up, in fridge for 1-2 nights.
 

11. On the day of cooking, bring the pork belly out of fridge 30min in advance to bring to room temp.
Pat dry the skin of any condensation from time to time. If you have not cut your 1kg pork belly into 2 pieces yet, this is the time to do it.
 

12. Preheat air fryer to 180C, airfry pork belly for 15min.

This was how 1/2 of the 1kg pork belly looked like after 15 min of 180C airfrying.

 

13. Brush rice vinegar on pork skin.

 

14. Change airfryer temperature to 200C and airfry for another 15min.



The same pork belly after the additional 15min of airfrying at 200C.

15. Meanwhile during the second half of the airfrying, preheat the oven to 240C.⁴

 

16. Remove from airfryer and put the pork belly in middle rack of oven and grill with fan at 230-240C for 1-2 min until the crackling appears to your satisfaction. Be watchful as it can burn very fast! Remove from oven immediately when crackling is done.

This was after oven grilling. Look at the difference in crackling before and after oven grilling!

 

Beautiful crackling and yet juicy meaty part!

17. Repeat the same process with the second piece.

 

18. Allow the meat to rest for minimum 15min before cutting.⁵

See how juicy the interior is! Yum!

 

Notes:

 

1. I used 1 tbsp of salt to rub on 1 kg of pork belly and then I realised it was too much so I scooped off some before I rubbed the salt in. Even though the salt was much lesser, my family still commented the skin could do with lesser salt, so 1/3-1/2 tbsp of salt should be sufficient, so long as it is enough to rub the whole surface area of the skin.

2. I was too greedy and asked the butcher to give me 1 kg of pork belly and I only found out when I was about to airfry it that that piece of pork can't fit into my Philips 1st gen airfyer! LOL! I had to cut into 2 pcs to fit in. Hence you will see that the above recipe seems a bit weird that I cooked 2x pork belly.

3. It is very important that you use the proper piercing tool for poking the skin. Uncooked pork skin is very tough! I tried using a short metal skewer in previous times to poke the skin; My take is don't bother. Go get the correct tool for this job and save yourself the aches.

4. I use the oven for the last few min of cooking because I find that the airfryer can't give me the perfect bubbly crackling I want, despite being set at max 200C. Hence I use the oven grill setting to achieve that. You can skip this grilling if you are satisfied with the crackling the airfryer gives you. For me, I find this final step is crucial in achieving the perfect crackling. Do take note that because the oven grill setting is EXTREMELY hot, I only preheat my oven to 240C using normal (NON-GRILL) setting and then just before I put the pork into oven, change the setting to grill (with fan on) setting.

5. Allowing the pork belly to rest for 15 min or longer after cooking will ensure that the meat remains juicy and moist. If you cut it while it is still hot, the juices will flow out of it rendering the meat tough and dry after cooling.