Pork Belly Confit Tacos

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spressomon

spressomon

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Since the first of the year I've been on a fresh pork belly kick. I've made pork belly a bunch of different ways including fresh bacon (NO SUGAR!). But the confit recipe from Keller's Ad Hoc at Home book is just crazy good.

But then I, from Eat It, Atlanta Fried Pork Belly Confit Taco | Eat It, Atlanta fried pieces of the pork belly confit for simple tacos with a little red cabbage/lime/mayo/hot sauce slaw and...well let's just say I can't imagine ever getting tired of it :) I had our guy's dinner the other night and they were begging me for more.

And damn it I don't have pics of the tacos but here's a photo of the pork belly confit as it was going in to the oven...

And here's a photo from an earlier off-road foray this year...on my night to cook I did French Lardon Salad with poached eggs and fried belly. And then did it again on our Explore Nevada 2011 trip in June.

You just can't get too much pork belly!
Pork Belly Confit.webp
French Lardon Salad.webp
 
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very nice!
 
God that looks tasty! Nice work. There's an Asian market that I hit frequently, and will definitely get some pork belly the next time I am there and start to experiment with it. Looks dang good!
 
BJTLC100 said:
God that looks tasty! Nice work. There's an Asian market that I hit frequently, and will definitely get some pork belly the next time I am there and start to experiment with it. Looks dang good!
Click to expand...

Prepare to be making a well worn path to your market! :D

Skin-on the belly is preferable; but don't pass it up if skin-less is all they have. I leave the skin on until I get ready to slice into serving portions and fry the belly meat up.

And instead of the slow cook process in lard you can also do the slow cook process in a little 50/50 mix of chicken stock and water. Not as unctuous but still pretty darn good.

And don't skip the 10-12 hour brine process on the front side of all this. BTW: After you slow cook the belly in the lard ("confit") you can leave it submerged, in a container, completely submerged/covered in fresh lard in the fridge (use fresh lard) for a month! So even though you may be tempted to eat the whole belly in one sitting :D you can easily dole it out over 3-4 weeks!


Although I haven't done it I want to take the skin and deep fry it...

Here's the recipe I want to try: Active Low-Carber Forums - View Single Post - Pork Belly SKIN recipes?


If anyone beats me to it please post up your results!
 
Do bagged chicharones count?

The kids and I can polish a bag of the hot ones faster than it takes to say oink.:D
 
splitshot said:
Do bagged chicharones count?

The kids and I can polish a bag of the hot ones faster than it takes to say oink.:D
Click to expand...

Just imagine what the real deal must taste like! Prepare to be changed forever :D
 
Pork belly brined with salt brine, pepper corns, juniper berries, smoked habanero and apple juice. Then smoked for 8-hours today over pecan. For a DV trip this week...hope it makes it that far :D.

So my plan is to slice it 1/3" thick or so, crisp it and use it as a twizzle stick in my home made bacon vodka bloody marys.

I'll report back :grinpimp:
Pecan Smoked Belly .webp
 
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So remind me why I don't roll with the Nevada crowd again?

This looks amazing!

To further convolute the Confit/Carnitas line here, I like to roast duck confit in my smoker, and make smoked ducky carnitas for tacos!
 
Damn that looks good! I need to hang with Dan!
 
So I made my own bacon vodka for my night to cook for the DV trip: For my Bloody Mary's with bacon vodka. You can't even imagine! Instead of a piece of celery as the swizzle stick or a pickle I cut that home-made pecan smoked bacon pic'd above into 1/2" thick slabs and slow cooked 'em in cast iron until they were just nice and caramelized; they became the swizzle sticks ;).

And a little of Mezzetta's Napa Valley Bistro Applewood Smoked Olive juice did the B.M.'s one notch better. Combat Chuck: I know you know the olives I'm talking about!

Mezzetta: Applewood Smoked Olives

Let's just say I'll be making these again!

Man I'm crazy addicted to my new found marriage of all things pork and pecan! I don't want to use any other wood now!
 
That bloody Mary sounds amazing. How did you do the bacon Vodka?
Pecan is by far my favorite smoking wood!

I love the Mezzetta jalapeno-stuffed olives. However, Granzella's in Williams, CA has the best olives on the planet. Their spicy Sicilian-style olives just knock it out of the park. If you're ever in the north bay, I'll have a jar of Granzella's here with your name on it.
 
In the mean time I'll keep an eye out for Granzella's; and thank you for your offer!

The bacon vodka is easy: 1 bottle of your favorite vodka; cut a pound of your favorite bacon into small pieces and render until golden brown; in a clean glass wide topped container (sterile probably is the order of the day) combine all the bacon and drippings (after cooling off a bit ;)) with the vodka. Let it sit in a cool dark place for several days. The original recipe I have calls for steeping for 3-weeks but I only had 3-days and it seemed to work just fine.

Then into the freezer. Skim the hard fat off the top. Then using a mesh strainer and 4-5 layers of cheese cloth I filtered all the sediment (while the mixture is still very cold). I repeated the filtering two more times.

Voila: Bacon Vodka.

Or you Cali guys can get Bakon Vodka made from potato vodka. Its not distributed in Nevada yet. Bakon Vodka :: Home

Your Bloody Mary's will never be the same!
 
Pic of the Bacon Vodka Bloody Mary's with the pork belly swizzle stick...from our Death Valley trip a couple weeks ago.

I'm going to have to rename this thread: All Things Pork Belly...or something to that effect! :D

Photo courtesy of beno!
Bacon Vodka Bloody Mary, Onur.001.webp
 
:drool: I've heard about this before but had not seen the recipe...looks damn tasty huh?! Maybe I'll have to try that on my night to cook on our next foray!
 
That drink looks great. I dont drink bloody mary's but I make a hell of a caesar. Going to have to kick it up a notch with some of that bacon vodka tho. Think I'll try that out at the wife's work xmas party in a couple of weeks. Should be interesting......... :cheers:
 
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