Crispy roast pork belly (Thit heo quay)

Impress your family or friends at your next dinner party with the most amazing crackling and succulent roast pork belly.It's not as hard as you may think and best of all with just a handful of ingredients.

Once considered a lesser cut of pork, it's fast becoming a favourite among chefs and is constantly appearing on menus of many fine dining restaurants.

Pork belly is without a doubt my favourite cut of pork, the layers of fat in this particular cut keep the meat really moist and juicy. There is no denying, crispy roast pork belly has a universal appeal. With its tender, juicy, porky goodness and crackling that is to die for. It's worth walking those few extra kilometers the day after to burnt off the calories.

Oh, if you're thinking of making it this weekend for your love ones or guests. I strongly suggest you invest in one of those round glass convection oven, with the fan lid. Unless you enjoy cleaning splatters of pork grease off the oven walls and floor. They are fairly inexpensive and I promise you, it's worth every dollar spent.

Ingredients

1-1.5kg pork belly
Coarse Sea salt
Rock salt
Oil

Five Spice rub

1 tbsp salt
1/2 tbsp white pepper
1/2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp five spice powder

Directions

1. To blanch the skin, bring water to boil in the kettle. Pour it over the skin side.
2. Pat dry thoroughly with paper towel and transfer onto a large chopping board.
3 Score the skin vertically 1 cm apart, but be careful not to score too deep through to the meat.
4. Rub the pork belly all over with five spice rub except for the skin side.
5. Generously dust skin side with coarse sea salt or cooking salt. Make sure to get it in between the scored skin. This will draw out excess moisture, resulting in a crispy crackling. Let it rest for an hour.
6. Wipe off any moisture on the skin with paper towel.
7. Line the convection oven with foil and place wire rack on top. Turn it onto the highest setting and preheat for 5 minutes.
8. Apply a little oil evenly on the skin side and apply a generously coating of rock salt on the skin. The rock salt will increase the cooking temperature on the skin's surface, resulting in the most amazing crackling.
9. Place the pork belly into the oven and set the timer for 50mins.
10. After 20mins, lower the temperature to 180* for the rest of the cooking time.
11. Once cooking is complete, transfer to chopping board. Dust off the rock salt and let it rest for 20 minute before carving it up.
12. Enjoy simply with steam rice or with accompaniment of herbs and lettuce, along with Vietnamese dipping sauce (Nuoc Cham)