👥8 people
⏲️16h 0m
🕐3h 0m
🍽️starter
This recipe can be adapted to suit any taste.
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 lbs. pork belly, skin off
- 1 oz kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon pink curing salt #1
- 2 tablespoons coarsely ground black pepper
- 2 bay leaves, crumbled
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar or honey or maple syrup (optional)
- 2 1/2 cloves of garlic, smashed with the flat side of a chef’s knife (optional)
- 1 tablespoon juniper berries, lightly crushed (optional)
- 2 1/2 to 10 sprigs fresh thyme (optional)
Method
- Place the belly in a plastic container. Cover with brine and add the salt and spice mixture to the solution. Cover it with plastic wrap, and stick it in the refrigerator for seven days.
- After seven days, take it out of the refrigerator, rinse off all the seasonings under cold water and pat it dry.
- Let the belly sit uncovered in the refrigerator for 2 to 4 hours so a pellicle (a thin skin or film) forms.
- Setup the Egg for smoking with a choice of wood and stabilize heat at 200ºF. Smoke until the internal temperature reaches 150ºF.
- Let it cool and refrigerate it until you’re ready to cook it.
- Note: If you don’t have five pounds of belly, either estimate salt based on the above or if you have a scale, multiply the weight of the belly in ounces or grams by .025 and that’s how many ounces or grams of salt you should use.
- Pink curing salt means “sodium nitrite,” not Himalayan pink salt. It’s what’s responsible for the bright color and piquant bacon-y flavor. You don’t have to use it, but your bacon will turn brown/gray when cooked (you’re cooking it well done, after all), and will taste like pleasantly seasoned spare ribs, pork-y rather than bacon-y.
