Cooking crispy roast pork

I have attempted to cook crispy roast pork before with varying degrees of success. It is best to cook with an oven, but I don't have a proper oven and so I cooked using the fish roaster that is found in most Japanese cooking ranges. The problem is that these roasters use gas and it can be hard to control the fire. I usually end up overcooking the meat, which becomes dry and the skin (which gives the crackle) becomes burnt.

Yesterday, I tried using an electric range, which has a roaster that uses heating elements like a toaster instead of fire. This allowed better control of the heat, and I must say, the result was quite good.

This is how dinner looked like.

First, the meat. I used a slab of pork belly with skin that was sold at the Chinatown in Yokohama. After defrosting the meat, I used an ice pick (but a fork will also do) to poke holes in the skin as well as the meat so that heat can better enter it.

Then, I used five-spice powder to season the meat. It was just a case of rubbing the powder onto the meat (not the skin). Then, to help draw water out of the skin (which makes the skin cook into a nice crackle), I rubbed salt onto the skin. Don't overdo it or you will end up with a very salty dish...

The pork belly is then wrapped in cooking wrap and placed into the refrigerator to season overnight. This seasoning process takes only about 5 minutes (plus the overnight in the fridge).

The cooking part is more time consuming.

First, I placed the pork belly with the skin facing down in the roaster and cooked using medium heat for 10 minutes. Then, I left it inside the roaster for about 5 minutes before turning the meat around, this time with the skin facing up. I then cooked again for 7 minutes at medium heat. The skin was not full cooked yet, so I left it in the roaster for another 5 minutes.

Then I turned the meat to its side, cooked for 7 minutes at low heat, simmer for 5 minutes, then turned over to the other side, cooked for 7 minutes at low heat again and simmered for 5 minutes.

Finally, to give the skin a proper crackle, I turned the meat with the skin facing up and cooked at medium heat for 7 minutes.

The end result was this.

The skin was nicely cooked to a crackle. The meat itself was not too dry. All that remained was to cut it and serve. It was my best attempt so far, but I can better improve it. First, the meat was not of even thickness, which is why some part of the skin got slightly burnt from being too close to the heating element. The best way to solve this is to cut the meat so that it is of even thickness. The excess meat can be cooked separately. Of course, the best way is to get a proper oven... 😅

Still, this is the best attempt so far. I will try my hand at it again when I have the time (need to travel to Chinatown to get the meat, and it takes quite some time and effort to actually cook).