Unlocking CRISPY PORK BELLY Secrets | Guga Foods

Do you hear that crunch? That's what crispy pork belly is all about. At the same time it is not easy to achieve the perfect crunch. Some crunch breaks your teeth, others are just perfect. And today we're going to find out which one is best so you can replicate it at home every single time. So let's do it! Here we have four pieces of pork belly. The important thing is to have skin on. I squared them off to perfect size so they are easy to work with. Whenever I'm choosing my pieces I always look for the one that has the most amount of meat. You have to because there is enough fat already in every piece and most of the time meat is what is missing. Our experiment is going to be very simple. One of them I'm going to be calling the oven and the reason for that is because I'm going to be using radiant heat to cook the skin. There will be nothing special about it just the preparation. The other one I'm going to be throwing hot oil on it. This is a very popular method in Brazil and we're gonna test it out. The following one will be dehydrated. As we know moisture is what prevents the skin from being crispy so adding it to the hydrated should be real good. And the last one will be Chinese style. If you've never had Chinese pork belly you don't know what you're missing. And we're going to put all of them against each other and find out which one is best. My very first preparations will be the oven and the deep fried. I started by making very small slashes on the meat side. These cuts are not deep their only purpose is so that we can get more seasoning into them. Talking about seasoning today I'm using Guga's rub. If you have not seen that video make sure you check it out. This is a rub you can do it at home easily. It can be used with all types of meat including fish, pork and beef. The one thing to remember is that it does not have a lot of salt. For additional flavor just add more salt to it. This is a meat tenderizer. I'm going to be using it to poke the skin and the idea is to make tiny holes so that the moisture will be extracted from the skin. Then I got a baking sheet and covered it with coarse sea salt. I shook that to ensure it was spread nicely. Then with skin side down I threw in my pork belly. And again the reason for this is so that we can extract every single moisture there is on the skin. Now that that's done all there's left to do is leave it on my refrigerator overnight. The very next day once I pulled it out you can see the difference. The skin is much harder and the salt did its job. If I move the salt around you can see how much moisture was extracted from the skin. Once I cleaned it all up this is what they look like. Now there's left to do one will be baked like in the oven style and the other one I'm going to be throwing some hot oil to crispen up the skin. The next one is the dehydrated one. After following the same exact process of the first two and adding Guga's rub it is now ready for the dehydrator. I set my dehydrator to 158 degrees fahrenheit, put in my pork belly and left it there for 12 hours. The very next day I quickly removed it and this is what it looks like. As you can hear from my knife it is very dry and that is what we're looking for. Once I picked it up and felt it in my hand there's still some moisture but the skin itself is like a rock. To dry out even more I put it in a cooling rack and put it into my refrigerator overnight. The very last one will be Chinese style and this might be the most complex of them all. Using my tenderizing tool I started by poking a bunch of holes on the skin then I threw into boiling water for 10 minutes. Once the 10 minutes had elapsed I removed it and quickly threw it into an ice bath. The goal is to bring the temperature down as fast as possible. Once that's done you gotta remove it from the water, pat it dry and poke some more holes on it. The only thing that you want to be careful when poking the holes is not to break the skin. If you heat it with full power it will shred, that's not what you're looking for. You're looking for tiny holes not huge ones. Then into a regular plate add some white vinegar. Add the pork belly skin side out and make sure you have some weight to press it. I'm using my barbecue dragon steak press. Just make sure all the skin is in contact with the vinegar. The next thing is to leave it uncovered overnight in your refrigerator. The very next day you can see that the vinegar slightly changed color. Then using fresh water you want to wash the skin as much as you can. If you skip this step the skin will taste horrible. The flavor of the vinegar will overpower anything on the skin. Once you are done pat it dry nicely and make sure there is zero moisture on it. Now once again leave it overnight in your refrigerator so that it can dry out. The very next day is ready for cooking and the first thing we need to do is poke a little bit more holes. Using aluminum foil fold the edges and wrap it around the pork belly. The important thing is to leave half an inch of clearance so that you can add salt. As you can see I'm left with a little boat and that is what you're looking for. Now there's left to do is to fill that entire top part with salt. You want to avoid table salt, using any type of rock salt or coarse salt will work just fine. But now that I have all my pork bellies ready to go I'm going to be baking them in my grill at 450 degrees Fahrenheit. After two hours I'm going to be removing two of them, the Chinese salted crusted and the Brazilian oil style. The dehydrated and the oven baked will remain in there. Once I remove the crust from the Chinese one it will go right back in and the Brazilian fried oil will get its treatment. But now I say it is enough talking and it's time to get some amazing crispy pork belly. So let's do it! We have our beautiful pork bellies over here. Are you ready Angel? Yeah let's go. Today is all about the crunch and we have four different styles and I want to know which one is the best crunch. Best crunch? Yeah it doesn't even matter if he knows what it is or not because it's... So hold on. Yeah. When we talk about best crunch I like when things are very crunchy but not hard. That's the key of pork belly you just made a very good point. You want a nice crunch but that goes through your bite directly. Yeah I don't want something that I'm like I get a crunch but it's like yeah I'm breaking my tooth. It's hard no we don't want that we want a nice soft crunch. I can tell you right now because I cut all of them they are all crunchy but we're gonna judge the crunchiness level and all that good stuff. Also if there's any off flavor. You ready? So we're judging chicharron. Chicharron basically. So we have right here this one is the oven style all right and then we have this one here which is deep fried in oils to give that crispiness. Okay. And then we have this one here which was dehydrated and we have the last one Chinese style. Okay you ready for it? Let's go for this one first Angel. All right let's go. First one cheers everybody. It's very very crunchy obviously. This is good this is a good amount. It stays a little stuck on my teeth I don't know about you. Not at all. Let me try another piece. Is the bottom crunchy? It's crunchy and it's like a soft crunch. Yeah. It is not a hard crunch. The bottom part still a little bit sticky but very very small. So the fat rendered nicely. This one is very nice everybody and the easiest one to make Angel. Which one is this oven? Yeah no not oven directly on the grill. On to the next one. The meat doesn't really matter because I know the meat's gonna taste great it's all about the crunch. Okay second one. Cheers. A little bit harder crunch but it's still not too hard. Yeah it's still the crunchiness is there but I think surprisingly that this one here is better. What do you think? They both all right I'm going with that one too. You're going this one right? Because the thing is this one is just a little harder. It's a little harder and on the bottom part the fat that I rendered too much and it still look it's still a little bit thick you see that that gooeyness I hope you can see that through the camera. That gooeyness stays stuck on your teeth. Yeah. And but it's not it's a nice soft crunch. It's nice and soft the gooeyness is what what gets me. This one was an easier crunch. I agree. To bite through. 100%. I've never seen anyone do anything like this one Angel so I'm excited for this one. Let's go for this one. Just the crunchiness nothing else. I'm even taking the meat out because I know the meat is gonna taste amazing. Wow. The meat is amazing! I just want to say this one had a different taste than this one. Yeah. Crunch wise. The oil. I guess so but I like the flavor of this one more. The oil altered the flavor a little bit that's why. I'm really excited about this one I never seen anything done anything like this before. Dehydrated. Ready? Let's go. Cheers everybody. That's a different. Very different. Very different crunch. Soft but hard. How do I explain that? It's soft but a little harder than this one but it's nice. It's not and all right these two have like that I guess space in between. Yes perfect description. It has air gaps in between. This one is just solid. This one's solid it's more like you're breaking up a chunk. Yeah. This one is like you when you crunch it. Don't get us wrong though it's soft it's not it's like not soft it's it's an easy crunch it's not like break your teeth. That's right. You agree? Yeah. It's good. It's a good crunch it's different though. It's different. Very very different. Different kind of crunch. You see? I can break it with my teeth. No problem. That's nice. It's a good one. I enjoy that one. It's different. It doesn't it doesn't have the feel of a chicharron. No. The last one's uh Chinese right? Yeah. So let's give this one a try. I'm excited for this one right. I don't want the meat we're just gonna take the crunch. Crunch judgment. You ready? Crunch. Last one everybody. Cheers. That one is delicious. That one is a combination of them together because there's some air gap there is a little hardness. What do you think Angel? It has a nice flavor. I like this one. I like this one bro. This one has the most chicharron feel to it. Oh okay this one is the winner everybody and our favorite overall. This one is really nice. Oh it's like a nice soft crunch with air pockets in between not so compressed like the dehydrated one and it has the nice things about the very first one that we enjoyed together with the flavor. This one goes a little bit of vinegar on top Angel. Yeah I tasted that a little bit but it's not that bad. No but it gives a nice unique flavor on the vinegar. You know who would love this? The vinegar boy. The preparation of the Chinese one takes a lot more time it is more work but it is better. I guess it's worth it because. It is worth it. It tastes amazing. I mean they have been doing this for years for a reason they know what's up. This is the best one second one will be this one here. Yeah. Third one will probably be the dehydrated. Nope. No you go with this one here. I go with this one. This one here and the last one dehydrated for you. It's just it doesn't have the chicharron. It needs something. It needs that little like airy that gap. Yeah the gap in between them the air pockets makes the crunch more enjoyable. Yeah. Yeah and the flavor of the vinegar did something here which is amazing everybody. The meat is freaking delicious if you are wondering. Come on! Anyway guys I hope you enjoyed this video if you do enjoy this video make sure you give it a thumbs up. If you're not a subscriber be sure to subscribe for future videos. Remember if you are interested in anything I use everything is always in the description down below. Thank you so much for watching and we'll see you guys on the next one. Take care everybody. Bye bye. See look they always say I don't like green stuff. I love green stuff. Oh come on. Come on that doesn't count. You go straight up dude. Oh man you. I like green stuff. I can tell now. I just don't like all green stuff you guys gotta judge me correct. Thank you for watching guys we'll see you on the next one. Take care everybody. Bye bye.