GastroDiary #1: Pork Belly Reuben w/ Red Onion Sauerkraut and Sriracha Thousand Island Dressing
Introducing GastroDiary: A weekly (or biweekly, depending on budget) series in which I whip up something good. I’ve always liked to cook, but now I’m making a concerted effort to develop my culinary skills, knowledge, and appreciation by preparing things from scratch as possible. For the inaugural post: Pork Belly Reuben with Red Onion Sauerkraut and Sriracha Thousand Island Dressing.
My love for pork is a rather latent one. Before, the only times I would eat pork would be the occasional bacon for breakfast, lechon at parties, or crispy pata at Max’s. For the most part, I was more of a beef guy: for me, there was nothing more gratifying than a buttery, rare-cooked ribeye steak. For the longest time, beef was the uber-meat; pork, or any other meat, for that matter, had nothing on it.
This pretty much changed when I started to frequent different Korean BBQ places around KTown. Sure, I always order the brisket, but ever since the first time I asked for pork belly, so began a gradual paradigm shift. The no-nonsense taste of uncured BBQ pork belly became an addiction; I started going to the local Nijiya Market almost every week to buy some to cook at home just to get my fix. I then started to appreciate BBQ pork ribs, fried pork chops, pulled pork, and sisig. I’ve come to realize how versatile pork can really be. In many ways, it has supplanted beef as the center of my food universe. Oh, what a wonderful thing, the pig.
It is with this passion for all things swine that I decided to make a pork belly reuben. Sure, it’s a nouveau hipstery sandwich, but it’s fatty pork, so I had to take a stab at it. After perusing a couple websites for recipes, I decided on a preparation process. So, over the weekend before the beginning of Spring Quarter, I made the sandwich after the most laborious, intensive cooking processes I’ve ever experienced, but enjoyed doing it and the end result—that beautiful, decadent sandwich—was well worth it.
It began on Friday night, in which I went all over town trying to procure the pork belly meet. I first went to Nijiya, where I had seen belly sold in blocks, but since it was the end of the day, I could only get one pound. I then went to the only Korean supermarket open in KTown at that time of day, and was able to find pieces that weren’t as neatly cut as the belly I got at Nijiya. In total, I got around three pounds. One site said that each pound yields about 2 to 3 servings.
Coming back to my mom’s apartment around midnight, I then prepared the meat for the next day. Unlike the meat I got at Nijiya, the bellies I bought at the KTown market still had the skin on. Though one of the recipes I found said that removing the skin was easy, for me it was not, at least without removing a lot of the valuable fat. I then seasoned the meat with dry mustard powder, salt, pepper, oregano, rosemary, basil, and some other herbs, rubbing it in well. I then placed it in the fridge overnight.
The next day, I lightly seared each piece on both sides, and placed them in a oven-safe dish with 4 carrots, 4 onions, and a red onion, all rough chopped; one clove of garlic, crushed, and about half a can of crushed tomatoes (around 4 to 6 tomatoes, I think). I then filled the dish with water to about 3/4 to the top, covered it with foil, and braised it in the oven for at 315 degrees for three hours. After braising, it was really tender, so much so that I placed the whole dish in the fridge to cool overnight so the meat wouldn’t disintegrate if I were to cut it into slices.
On the final day of my food adventure, I removed the belly pieces and vegetables from the dish and strained the braising liquid into a pan and reduced it. I’ve noticed that that a lot of folks tend throw away the braising vegetables, but considering all of the money I’d spent on this little project, I decided to pack it for later use.
In order to make the sauerkraut, I drained about a pound of prepared sauerkraut. I then chopped and caramelized one red onion, sprinkled some salt, pepper, and sugar, and added the sauerkraut, sauteeing it for about 5 minutes. I then made the dressing by combining two parts mayo, two parts ketchup, one part relish, one tablespoon of sriracha, and a pinch of pepper.
To assemble the sandwich, I sliced four 3/4-inch-thick slices of belly and browned each side for about 2 minutes. I also toasted two slices of rye on a pan, buttering both sides of each, and adding one slice of provolone to one of them. I then placed the meat on the side with the cheese, and on the other slice I slathered on the dressing and placed a generous couple of spoonfuls of the sauerkraut on top of it.
Mind you, this sandwich is really fatty and indulgent. I ate 1 1/2 sandwiches and knocked out for a couple of hours afterward. Considering how fatty belly meat is, this was quite expected; one recipe recommended that the top layer of fat should be removed, which I decided to do— after all, fat is flavor. Upon trying the sandwich, my dad recommended that I remove it the next time I prepare it.
Overall, making this sandwich was a great introduction into truly soulful cooking that I plan on doing a lot more from now on.
H/T to http://cookingonthelinebook.blogspot.com/2011/01/pork-belly-ruebenthe-worlds-next-best.html and http://catastrophysicist.wordpress.com/my-favorite-sandwiches/pork-belly-reuben/ for the recipe queues.
