This one is
one of my favorite recipes, Alinea and otherwise, and the difficulty and amount
of prep time required is actually not too bad. And there is almost no special
equipment needed. It was one of the earlier recipes I have tried, it worked out
in the first attempt, and I have done it many times since, so without further
ado, here it is:
Part 1:
Pork Belly
Ah, pork belly.
Have you ever had a bad recipe with pork belly? Neither did I. The pork belly
here gets cured by letting it rest in a mixture of salt, sugar, smoked paprika
and chipotle chili powder. Since I like it a little hotter and less sweet, I sometimes
replace chipotle chili for regular chili powder. As for the smoked paprika, do
yourself a favor and get some Pimentón de la Vera. You can thank me in the comments.
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| Pork Belly gets cured |
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| After 2 days in the fridge |
The mixture
stays in the fridge in a Ziploc bag for 2 days. This not only dries out the
meat, it also lets it absorb the spice taste. It then gets cooked for 4 hours sous
vide at 88º C. Since the temperature is so high, and therefore does not need to
be precise, you could just as well put the meat in a Ziploc bag, carefully submerge
it in a pot of water to get the air out before closing the zipper and cook it
in simmering water, should you lack the sous vide equipment. After it cools, it
gets cut in little squares. Pretty straight forward.
Part 2: The
vegetables
Note, the
title uses the singular for pickled vegetable, which is correct, since we only
pickle a carrot, the cucumber and ball pepper in the recipe are just cut in
pieces. The ball pepper (or rather, a very small part of a ball pepper), is cut
into cubes with an edge length of 3 mm. Do that 16 times (for 8 persons) and
you still have a whole lot of ball pepper left. Using a small parisienne scoop
(basically a small melon baller, available on Amazon), little balls are scooped
out of a cucumber and a carrot. A hot liquid containing of equal parts vinegar,
water and sugar is then poured over the carrot balls. This is essentially pickling,
although on a very rudimentary level.
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| Pickled carot balls |
Tuile.
Alinea loves tuiles. The word means tile in French and refers to the French
roof tiles these little things somewhat resemble in shape. While tuiles in
cooking, or rather baking, mostly are made out of dough or cheese, Alinea regularly
makes them from some sugar mixture. As we do here.
Fondant is
used here. Fondant, or Fondant icing to be precise, is that white sugary mass
you see on cakes. The icing. Simple as that. Buy at any decent grocery store or
you favorite online retailer. The form doesn’t matter here, it gets melted anyhow.
Another
aspect to pay attention to here is humidity. This is one of the instances where
I envy anyone who has air conditioning. Not for the cool, but for the drying of
the air. When you make these tuiles, you want to be in a dry environment. I
sometimes do the latter stages of the preparation in the living room rather
than the kitchen, and you certainly don’t want to reduce a large pot of bone
broth while doing this.
So here we
go. Fondant is heated with glucose and isomalt, another sugar-like substance.
The result is cooled down.
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| cooled sugar mixed |
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| spices for the tuile |
Then we add
some spices, again chili and smoked paprika (or Pimentón de la Vera) and grind
the mixture to a powder. This is where the humidity problem starts. The sugar
powder loves water! So, keep it dry.
We build
ourselves a little square stencil from some leftover cardboard and sift the
sugar powder on a sheet tray.
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| cardboard stencil |
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| the tuile before heating |
Part 4:
Polenta
Well, more
like fat and some polenta. We cook a little polenta in water until dry and then
add butter and mascarpone (Italian cream cheese). And no, you may not
substitute low-fat Philadelphia.
Now we have
mis en place.
Part 5:
Assemble and serve
We char the
pork belly pieces on one side until charred (charred is not completely black
and burned!) and quickly remove them from the pan. You can use a sheet tray for
the next part, I prefer to use a little wooden cutting board and work in
batches. Place the pork belly, put 2 carrot balls and 2 cucumber balls on top
diagonally, pepper in the center and top with one of the tuiles.
Then using the grill, the whole thing goes in the oven until the tuile melts again. Tricky, isn’t it. The whole procedure takes only a couple of seconds. Then we place this little nugget of carnivore bliss on a dollop of polenta, add some green in the form of marjoram (or is that only for the foto?) and enjoy.
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| pork belly covered with veggies |
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| and topped with a tuile |
Then using the grill, the whole thing goes in the oven until the tuile melts again. Tricky, isn’t it. The whole procedure takes only a couple of seconds. Then we place this little nugget of carnivore bliss on a dollop of polenta, add some green in the form of marjoram (or is that only for the foto?) and enjoy.
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| enjoy! |
Part 6: The
recipe
Equipment
- Sous Vide cooker
- Vacuum Sealer
250 g
kosher salt
50 g Pimentón
de la Vera
25 g (chipotle)
chili powder
200 g pork
belly
In small
bowl, stir together sugar, salt, Pimentón de la Vera and chili powder. Pack
mixture around pork belly. Cover and refrigerate for 2 days. Rinse in cold
water. Place belly in vacuum bag and seal on highest setting. Cook sous vide in
large pot of water at 88° C for 4 hours. Transfer bag to ice water to cool
completely. Remove pork belly from bag and cut pork belly into strips 1.3 cm
wide. Lay each strip on its side and cut into 2,5 cm squares, making sure each
square is about half meat. Cover with damp paper towel and refrigerate in
airtight container.
Vegetables
1 red bell
pepper
1 English
cucumber
1 large
carrot
30 g sugar
30 g water
30 g white
wine vinegar
Peel
cucumber. Using 10 mm parisienne scoop, scoop out 16 balls. Reserve.
Core and
seed pepper and cut off ends. Pick a reasonable sized piece of pepper and cut
of the inside so that you have 3mm flesh on skin. Cut into 3 mm cubes. Cover
with damp paper towel and reserve.
Peel
carrot. Using 10 mm parisienne scoop, scoop out 16 balls. Place in small bowl.
In small saucepan, bring sugar, water and vinegar to a boil. Pour over carrot
balls. Reserve on countertop.
Smoked
Paprika Tuile
120 g
fondant
60 g
glucose
60 g
isomalt
4 g Pimentón
de la Vera
1 g chili
powder
In small
saucepan, heat fondant, glucose and isomalt over medium heat to 160° C. Pour into
silicone baking form. Let cool until hard.
Preheat
oven to 180° C. Line large sheet tray with silicone mat. Cut 5 cm square
stencil (from cardboard) and place on mat on tray. In spice grinder, grind
together 75 g of hardened sugar, Pimentón and chili to fine powder. Sift ground
mixture over stencil, creating layer 2 mm thick on mat. Remove stencil. Repeat
process to make 8 evenly coated squares. Bake until sugar is molten. Remove
from oven and let cool a bit. Remove from silicone mat before it is fully
cooled. Store in an airtight container on countertop.
Polenta
25 g
polenta
75 g water
1 g salt
20 g
butter
20 g
mascarpone cheese
In small
saucepan, bring polenta, water and salt to a gentle simmer over low heat. Cook
for 10 to 15 minutes or until polenta is nearly dry. Remove from heat. Whisk in
butter, then fold in mascarpone. Keep warm. If mass becomes too dry, add a few
drops of milk or cream.
To Assemble
and Serve
16 marjoram
leaves with stem
Sear pork
belly over very high heat on one large side until charred. Remove from heat. Place
pork belly pieces at least 6 cm apart on sheet tray covered with silicone mat.
Place 2
carrot balls and 2 cucumber balls diagonally on each piece of pork belly. Put 2
pepper pieces in the middle of vegetables. Center tuile on top of vegetables.
Preheat the
oven on highest setting and on sheet tray as high as possible. Grill for a
couple of seconds until tuile melts and completely covers belly. Remove from oven
and trim off any excess tuile.
On table
spoon or similar, place small dollop of warm polenta. Place pork belly on top.
Place 2 marjoram leaves on top in corners.
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