These are super rich. You can only eat a few pieces. Feeds 20-25 people as a side dish.
These pictures are of a double batch (2 bellies).
INGREDIENTS
- 1 whole pork belly (approximately 15 lbs). Buy this at a butcher shop. Don’t buy the small packages from the big box stores. They typically have less meat on them and they are usually sliced much thinner than what we want.
- 1 cup BBQ salt (recipe on this site) or your favorite pork rub.
- 1 cup packed brown sugar.
- Mulberry or other mild smoke wood.
INSTRUCTIONs
- Cut the pork belly into 1.5″ cubes. (They will shrink by 30% – 50% when cooked).
- Coat the meat with the rub and brown sugar.
- Place on trays or cookie sheets so as much of the surface is exposed as possible. (Some recipes call for placing the cubes on racks but I would only do this in a wood-fired smoker where lots of dripping grease would not make a mess.)
- During the entire cooking time, check the meat every hour and remove as much grease from the tray as possible.
- Smoke at 250 degrees for 4 hours.
- Increase the temperature to 350 degrees and cook for an additional hour to form a nice bark.
- Some recipes call for simmering the meat in a mixture of BBQ sauce and sugar or honey to make them sticky. I don’t think these need it. They are excellent dry and you can add your favorite sauce when you serve them. My choice for pork is the JRP’s Tangy Caribbean BBQ Sauce.
