This pork belly is based on the Heston Blumenthal sous vide technique for making 36 hour Pork Belly. The brine I used is a simplified version of a recipe from a cooking class at ToTT taught by Stephan Zoisl. Unfortunately, there is no online recipe for the brine, but a quick search on “pork belly sous vide” will return a number of great posts and how-tos (two of which I’ve included below).
The general cooking process for tasty sous vide pork belly is as follows: brine the belly, sous-vide, sear/boil the skin, and serve.
While the brine ingredients are wildly different per chef, my suggestion is that you build your own per your tastes. For instance, I really loved the addition of mustard powder that Zoisl includes in his recipe and so I incorporated that along with some corriander powder, white pepper, bay leaves, thyme and cumin into my brine. Also, general rule of thumb for salt to water for a brine is 1/2 cup of table salt (or 1 cup of kosher salt) to 1 gallon of water. Since I didn’t have a cheesecloth handy for straining the brine (prevent the herbs from overpowering), I used a teapot, works just as well.
After 24 hours of brining, I then put the pork belly into my Sous Vide Supreme at the recommended 60 °C for 36 hours. The result was a pork belly that had a nice gelatinous fatty layer with a moist and flavorful meaty layer. The only loose end was the skin, which Zoisl’s recipe advocates removing, but if you have a bit of skill with crisping (pan frying works nicely), a bit of crunch to the skin adds a great texture.
For those who can’t or don’t want to wait for 36 hours, you can try the Thomas Keller version, cooking the belly at a much higher 80 °C for 9-12 hours (ala Under Pressure). Pork belly cooked this way ended up with an even more gelatinous fatty layer…mmm, but overall consensus was that the meat was a bit on the dry side, though still moistly acceptable.
And there you have it – two delicious (and almost foolproof) ways to cook pork belly sous vide from two 3-star Michelin chefs.
Additional reading:
Please teach T how to use the sous vide more often! It’s not been used and it’s sitting there feeling rather lonely on the countertop -_-
I’m sure T knows how to use the machine, just have to get in the habit of using it. Maybe we should have a sv cooking night one of these days at your guys’ place =)