How to: Pork Crackling
The best roast dinners are the ones when you can hear you whānau crunching on a bit of pork crackling. We’ve listed tips to make sure you get that crunch every single time.
1. Score the skin
Ask your butcher to score the skin for you. Their knives are nice and sharp and it saves you time in the kitchen. If you go DIY make sure you don’t cut into the meat,
2. Massage with salt and leave overnight
Massage a handful of good quality salt into the skin, and leave the pork uncovered in the fridge overnight. If you don’t have overnight, a few hours will do. This will draw the moisture out of the skin and the less moisture there is the cracklier the skin will be! Pat pork dry, and remove excess salt from the skin.
3. Drizzle and sizzle
Pre-heat your oven to 220°C and rub oil over the meat. Roast for about 30mins to get the crackle started, and then reduce the temperature to 170°C and cook for 1 hour p/kg of meat.
4. Grill
Your crackling may some extra TLC, so change your oven settings to grill on medium-high. Move the pork belly to the top of the oven and grill the skin until it goes puffy and golden all over (this doesn’t take long so keep an eye on it in case it burns!).
