Porchetta: Italian rolled pork belly

The cook, step by step.

1. 1

   Step 1

   Done

   We start in this recipe one day in advance by using a thawed piece of pork belly on the sword side with a layer of coarse sea salt and baking soda. Place about every 4 tablespoons of sea salt 1 tablespoon of baking soda and mix well before applying it to the sword. Make sure you do this all over the surface. This salt/bakingsoda combination ensures that the sweat dries out nicely and it becomes perfectly crispy during preparation. Just before the preparation you wash off the piece of pork belly with water and pat it dry well again with kitchen paper. After this with a sharp knife piercing small holes all over the sword, this helps to narrow the surface and it sware to become more crispy.

2. 2

   Step 2

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   Then we'll make the herb filling. Cut sage and rosemary finely, and bruise the fennel seed lightly with a fiber or similar. Chop garlic finely and grate only the yellow of the lemon, not the white below because this is very bitter. Then add all the ingredients and stir well. Leave this for half an hour so the flavors can develop.

3. 3

   Step 3

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   Place the pork belly with the rind side down on the cutting board and cut open the bellies bacon from the middle to both sides so that the surface on which you can lubricate the seasoning pasta magnifies.

4. 4

   Step 4

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   Now spread the made herb paste over the entire surface and close the pork belly again.

5. 5

   Step 5

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   We now take a piece of butcher's rope and button it tightly with between each knot about 1.5/2cm. This way we ensure that the whole pork belly stays tightly rolled during preparation. In total, I needed about 5 knots for this piece.

6. 6

   Step 6

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   Light the BBQ and adjust it for indirect heat around 175 degrees Celsius.

   BBQ temperature: 175°C
7. 7

   Step 7

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   In my case I cooked the porchetta at the spit, so you get the optimal self-screwing of the meat because it is in continuous motion. But this is not a must, if you don't have a spit you prepare it completely indirectly on the roster. We cook the porchetta at 175 degrees Celsius in the dome until the core of 70 degrees Celsian is reached. After this we turn up the temperature in the barbecue to 250 degrees and cook the porchetta by means of bubbles on the sword, which can take 20-25 minutes. Pay extra attention to this last phase, because it can also burn and of course we do not want that.

   Internal temperature: 70°C
8. 8

   Step 8

   Done

   Get the porchetta when desired crispy skin is reached from the barbecue and let it rest for at least 10 minutes. Then cut into nice thin slices and serve! Bon appetit!

   10m