Final Notes for the Oven-Roasted Pork Belly Recipe with Crackling
➡️ Pork belly is one of the juiciest pork cuts, but despite this fact, it’s pretty much less used in many countries to prepare pork recipes. However, I love pork belly especially when it’s roasted in the oven with the skin on, so I have several recipes featuring this pork cut.
➡️ On this webpage, I share a slow-roasted pork belly recipe in the Hungarian style. Paprika is one of the characteristic Hungarian spices, so I include it in the marinade. Mostly, I use smoked paprika because I like the final flavor of roasted pork with a smoked taste. Needless to say, you can use mild or spicy paprika or even a combination of them to customize your marinade.
➡️ Another combination that I love is the mixture of marjoram, thyme, and cumin. They fit all excellently with roasted pork belly, so I recommend you to use them when you cook pork belly or another fat pork cut.
➡️ A very important tip is to allow enough time for the marinade to penetrate the meat and enjoy a rich taste. If you have time, you might store the marinated belly in the fridge overnight.
➡️ Another thing that I strongly recommend is to cut the skin. I make this both to enter better flavors into the meat and make a way to soften and fry easier the meat more because the skin is pretty thick and impermeable. Even if it might look pretty difficult, making notches in the skin is not so hard, especially if you are using a very sharp knife.
➡️ Finally, the crucial tip for this roast pork recipe is to cook the meat at low temperatures because you need to soften it prior to frying it. You might even flip the pork belly once or twice to soften it evenly, but in the end, keep the roast with the skip up to enjoy the crispy skin. Although I don’t recommend this to keep the roasted pork belly as tender as possible, if you want to remove the skin completely, you can do it easily (see below).
➡️ Needless to mention, adding red wine to the tray instead of water takes the recipe to the next level, but this depends completely on you.
➡️ Enjoy cooking oven-roasted pork belly crackling from scratch! For additional info, read more on pork belly!