Pitmasters are slowly embracing pork belly
Pork belly holds a mythical place in American culinary culture. The slablike cut of meat from the underside of a hog is the basis for bacon and its myriad uses, from the breakfast staple to our favorite cheeseburger topping.
Pork belly is wellknown to many college business majors, too. For decades, it was used as the agriculture-product-of-choice when teaching the concepts of commodities and futures contracts.
However, the growing demand for bacon and pork belly resulted in a steadier supply in the past decade, and trading in pork-belly futures was discontinued in 2011.
Beyond just bacon, pork belly has become omnipresent on American restaurant menus and, more recently, barbecue-joint menus. Pork belly offers pitmasters a relatively forgiving cut of meat that can be quickly seasoned and cooked, and it’s more economical than other traditional cuts, such as brisket.
With its compressed layers of meat and fat, pork belly is well suited for soaking up the flavor of smoke and seasonings. The major pitfall to ordering smoked pork belly is that you never know how much fat you are going to get. In my own experience with pork belly at barbecue restaurants, I’d say about a third of the time it is almost all fat, and thus inedible.
Which could be one reason pork belly hasn’t completely taken off as a fixture on barbecue-joint menus. Overly fatty pork belly is the result of purchasing a cheap cut and is often compounded by an inexperienced pitmaster who is unfamiliar with the need to source highquality belly.
The typical barbecue joint’s pork-belly dish features thick slabs that are about three- fourths meat to one-fourth fat. The crusty, peppery bark combines with the tender meat and the rich, silky fat to create the essence of pork flavor.
In Pearland, Killen’s Barbecue is well known for its bone-in pork belly (a chunk of the rib bone is still attached). More recently, the new Pappas Delta Blues Smokehouse in Webster has featured pork belly on its menu.
Barbecue restaurants also are incorporating pork-belly “bites” on their menus. These are basically cubes of smoked pork belly coated in a sweet glaze. Killen’s STQ restaurant uses a cherry-habanero glaze, for example.
The idea of pork-belly cubes covered in a sweet/salty/sticky glaze is nothing new in world cuisine. Taiwanese cuisine features “gua bao” or just “bao,” which is often listed on American menus as “steamed buns.” This is a street-food item featuring a folded-over oval of steamed bread that can be filled with a protein, such as a chunk of soy-sauce-glazed pork belly. In Houston, FatBao restaurant is a great place to try many different kinds of bao.
Similarly, Chinese (Cantonese) cuisine features simply seasoned and roasted crispy pork belly (siu yuk). Hong Kong Food Street restaurant in Houston’s Asiatown is one local spot to taste this dish.
Pork belly also makes an appearance in Japanese ramen, the rich, pork-based, soup-and-noodle dish. Known as “chashu,” the broth and noodles are accompanied by thin slabs of marinated and braised pork belly. Ramen Tatsu-Ya in Montrose features a worthy chashu component in its ramen.
Like other humble cuts of meat — think beef oxtails and skirt steak — pork belly is having its celebrity turn on restaurant menus. Of course, Asian menus have always featured this cut, as has the venerable American diner, which has served bacon-and-eggs breakfasts since time immemorial.
Texas barbecue joints have been slow to jump on the porkbelly bandwagon, but as the quality of the cut and the skill of the pitmaster increases, it might become a standard menu item in the future.