As delicious as it is, sometimes the end result of roast pork is not the crispy, crunchy crackling, says STEVE BAIN.
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Sometimes we want to turn a slab of pork into pieces of roast that are perfectly sized for a picnic slider.
We need to butcher it ready to be rolled as a roast, in the process removing the rind.
You may choose to turn the rind into crackling afterwards, but the object of the exercise here is the pork rolled roast.
Step 2: Place the belly rind side up on your cutting board.
Step 3: One of the tricks to efficiently remove the rind from a pork belly is to manage the knife angles. This can be achieved at the start by having the knife blade parallel to and underneath the rind. I achieve this by having my knife handle down low and ‘off’ the cutting block (as shown in the photo). This requires the meat to be close to the edge of the block, and accordingly you should keep a hand on the meat in order to stop it tumbling onto the floor.
Step 4: The following photos show the process of shaving the rind from the fat that is still attached to the pork meat. You will find that using different parts of the knife blade for various phases of the 'skinning' is something that gets better/easier with experience — it's all about the three dimensional relationship between knife edge shape and the angles to the meat.
Step 5: Once you have a reasonable sized rind flap 'flensed' away from the meat; start up high and in a shaving fashion, run the full length of the knife edge down the skin that you are removing. Keep doing this and you'll gradually get the belly skinned.
Step 6: I find it best to thinly shave the smallest amount of fat away at a time; as seen in this close-up.
Step 7: There are many tricks to skinning (de-rinding). Shown here is the use of the pointy knife tip to ‘scratch’ or poke away at the join between skin and belly fat. Get the knife point right down into the ‘fat’ side of the join, and draw it towards yourself for the full length of the ‘crack’/join. Repeat this for a few strokes and then go back to shaving with a full length blade. Switch it out depending on what feels good for you. It takes time and patience.
Step 8: The pork belly meat, with rind removed, ready for rolling into a roast. You may choose to turn the rind into crackling separately.
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