Recipe: Crispy Skin Cantonese Pork

Siu Yuk (燒肉) with Hot Mustard sauce 🇨🇳

Since we talked about how important (and delicious) pork can be across the globe, today I’m going to show you how to take a popular yet polarizing cut that’s magically delicious 🪄

We are talking pork belly today.

Most people that have had bad experiences with pork belly should be blaming the chef, not the pig.

The belly, obviously, has a large amount of fat content but this does not mean the final cooked product should be greasy, flabby and inedible.

Properly cooked pork belly should be unctuous, tender, full of flavor… and a delicious treat. This is, after all, where real bacon 🥓 comes from.

I remember my intro to Siu Yuk… the crispy, crunchy strips of pork belly hanging in heat lamp lit, restaurant windows in Hong Kong. Every time an order would come in, strips of pork belly were quickly chopped into bite size pieces with a cleaver.

The pork was amazing. Crispy skin that shattered like glass… tender and silky lean meat underneath that the fat had rendered out of. Dipped into a hot mustard sauce and/or seasoned with chinese salt-and-pepper mix… heavenly 🙌

Not greasy

Not “fatty”

A perfect treat to enjoy in small portions… which makes this great for doing when friends come over.

Here’s the step-by-step recipe ⬇️

We go through:

-pork belly selection

-what is chinese hot mustard

-best way to cook and get the crispiest pork skin