Pork Belly ~ It's Not Just For Bacon

When people think of pork belly, they usually think of bacon, but when it's not cured it makes a wonderful barbecue meat. If you don't know, pork belly is the meat that is removed from spare ribs. Below is a full slab of spare ribs, notice the veins of fat are the same as the pork belly photo above.  Imagine the carcass of a hog... the spare ribs define the cavity, and moving outward, the pork belly has a layer of fat for insulation, and you can buy it skin-on or skin-off.  I prefer skin-off.  But with some patience, you can remove the skin by starting in a corner, and use the tip of your fillet knife to establish a starting point. Then using the tip of the knife.... cut, roll, repeat. 

So if you like spare ribs, you will love pork belly. It can be smoked whole, but it's easier to cut down into manageable pieces for slicing, or cut into cubes which are sometimes known as pork belly burnt ends (named after brisket burnt ends).  Either technique can be quite delicious. 

One more comparison... This photo is a full width spare rib, and the photo below are full width slices of a smoked pork belly.  

Many prefer making cubes from a smoked pork belly, and then re-seasoning and reducing them down in a butter, brown sugar and sauce mixture until they are fall apart tender.  Covering the pan gives you more control for rendering.  One downside to the cube in the pan method is an excess of rendered fat. However, this can simply be poured off, and replaced with some sauce, or thinned out sauce. 

For sliced pork belly, I smoke unwrapped until I get good color, then use a wrapped step to achieve the final rendering and to dial in the tenderness I prefer.  When wrapping, you can add butter, Parkay, sauce, fruit nectar, brown sugar, honey, maple syrup, apple juice, hot pepper jelly, etc.  And many internet BBQ cooks do just that... sometimes to excess.  For reference, I used a mild squirt of Parkay, and 2 ounces of apple/white grape juice when I wrapped these pieces. 

These slices are very tender, and I added a little of the foil juices when plating

Seasonings and flavorings are the wild cards in the pork belly game, so I saved that subject for last. I think most barbecue recipes lean toward the sweet side for pork belly. Meaning a flavor profile like Kansas City.... with a sweet rub, and some thicker sauce. 

On the other side of the spectrum.... is an herb rub that can be worked into slices of the fat. And there are hundreds of Oriental recipes for pork belly.