How to spit roast Crispy Pork Belly Bites

How to cook Crispy Pork Belly Bites

This image shows crispy pork belly cooked in Cyprus spit

Difficulty score: Easy

Cooking Pork Belly bites with the perfect crackling on the Cyprus Deluxe Spit Roaster is easy but so deliciously rewarding. This mouth-watering snack is a crowd-pleaser that will make you the hero of your next BBQ!

Don’t worry if you don’t have a Cyprus spit roaster of your own, you can replicate this recipe on any spit roaster you may already own, like a Bunning's Jumbuck or the likes.

Ingredients:

1. 1.5kg pork belly

2. Kosher Salt

3. Greek Gyros BBQ rub (or your favourite pork rub)

Method:

Preparation

1. A minimum of 24 hours before you cook the pork belly prepare it by scoring the skin and applying a liberal amount of salt. In today’s cook, we use Kosher salt from Misty Gully.

This image shows Kosher Salt by Misty Gully and Pork Belly

2. Place your salted and scored pork belly in the refrigerator overnight uncovered.

The next day - preparation continued

1. After removing the pork belly from the fridge, scrape off any excess salt from the skin with a knife.

This image shows Rhiannon Peterson scraping Kosher Salt to pork Belly

2. Trim any excess skin/meat/fat from the bottom of the pork belly that won’t render well.

This image shows excess fat of pork belly being trimmed

3. Rub the meat of the pork belly, avoiding the skin as best you can with your favourite BBQ rub. Today we are using ‘Greek Gyros’ from Flaming Coals. This rub is family-friendly and contains no preservatives or added MSG but delivers a huge amount of flavour.

This image shows pork belly being seasoned with Greek Gyros seasoning

4. Using a very sharp knife, slice the pork belly into equal strips to be put onto the Cyprus kebab skewer.

This image shows pork belly being sliced using sharp knife

5. Once sliced, slide the pork belly strips onto the skewers. Note: the skewers are extremely sharp, so be careful!

This image shows pork belly being strips onto the skewers

Lighting the charcoal

1. Place your charcoal in the base of the spit. For today’s cook we are using mallee root charcoal, which is an excellent choice for spit roasting. Mallee burns hot and produces very little ash. It’s also an Australian product and doesn’t have any nasty additives that will affect the flavour of your food.

2. Using the Flaming Coals charcoal starter wand on the first setting (high-powered heat) insert the nozzle into a mount of charcoal and wait for a spark. Once the spark is achieved change to the second setting (high-powered fan). Your charcoal will be fully lit within 2-5 minutes.

This image shows starting a fire to charcoal using charcoal starter wand

Cook

1. Place your skewers onto the spit. Note we have the Cyprus skewer mechanism in its highest position to allow the pork belly to cook without burning.

This image shows sliced pork belly placed in the Cyprus Spit Skewer.

2. Allow the pork belly to spin until the crackling is set, and the juices are coming out of the meat then using an instant-read thermometer check the internal temperature of the meat. Note: ensure you probe the meat, not the fat! You’re looking for a temperature of 85 degrees celsius.

This image shows pork belly placed in the skewer and checking internal temperature of meat

3. Depending on the heat of the charcoal/height of your skewers this cook should take around 30-35 minutes, however like all cooks we are cooking to temp not time.

This image shows pork belly cooked in the Cyprus spit

The only thing left to do is to take off the skewers, chop the slices into bite-sized pieces and enjoy!

This image shows sliced crispy pork belly and Greek Gyros Seasoning

To enhance the flavour you could consider adding a dipping sauce of Kosmos Q Apple Chipotle sauce. However, we think these bites are PERFECT by themselves.