Pork Belly Roasted with Honey Balsamic Glaze Makes A Delicious Appetizer

Pork belly as it is sold by butchers and supermarkets includes the skin, fat layer, and some thin muscle streaks from the sides and belly of the hog. Belly is not stomach, but literally the belly. It’s most common use is as bacon. Bacon is the smoked cured slices of belly that are high in fat and streaked with muscle and seasoned with salt and spices.

Unsmoked raw pork belly, long popular in Europe and Asian cuisines, has recently become a rage in restaurants where it is often serve as a roasted appetizer. It’s exceedingly easy to roast and the only difficult part is finding a piece of pork belly large enough to make the effort worthwhile and to serve four to six people.

If you can’t find pork belly in your supermarket—and it’s unlikely you will because supermarkets lag far behind what restaurant chefs introduce—you’ll need to seek out a butcher or an ethnic market. I use the meat markets in the Koreatown of Los Angeles.

There absolutely nothing you have to do to the belly to prepare it for roasted other than place it in its marinade. In a bowl, whisk together 1/2 cup honey, 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar, 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon, and 1/2 teaspoon ground star anise with a little salt and pepper. Brush both sides of the belly with the marinade and then let the belly marinate in the glaze overnight in the refrigerator covered with plastic wrap. The next morning preheat the oven to 225 degrees F and place the belly on a rack in a roasting pan. Roast, skin-side up, until very tender, about 9 hours, basting every now and then until the marinade is used up.

Remove the roasted belly to a carving board or a platter and carefully slice off the skin and set aside. Slice off the first, thick layer of fat and discard it. Place the skin back on top for serving purposes only. Slice into portions at the table. Because of the richness of the roasted belly the most sensible way to serve it is as an appetizer accompanied with something plain such as crushed potatoes or a simple green. S.lice the belly into small cubes and serve on top of any of the following: a slice of baguette, a little mustard, applesauce,chopped arugula, thin slice of jicama, or mashed potatoes.