Pork 'Burnt Ends' - my take

MikeG

We had an end of summer 'block party' yesterday and I had put myself down for pulled pork. I wanted to bring along a bit of a surprise as well so came up with the idea of pork belly morsels on toothpicks. People were raving about them so I thought I'd share here.

I start with belly slabs I buy from the Chinese market. They come trimmed to about 14" x 8".

- Cut in half legthwise and trim off the hide and 90% of the fat that was under it.  It's difficult to render out and makes for a very fatty mouth-feel.

- Score very deeply into 1.5" (they shrink) cubes from the 'meat side' but don't cut all the way through.

- Apply rub as desired. I did this the night before

I wanted 4 hours in the Egg (sorry, KJ in my case) without drying them out, so...

- Fold on itself so the uncut side is out and cook 3 hrs low & slow

- Reverse the fold to get some smoke on the scored side and cook another 45 mins - 1 hour. They will be slightly dried out, which is what I wanted.

- Pull them and finish cutting through the scores to cube them up.

- Put them in a foil lined glass casserole with your fave bbq sauce and toss them with fingers to cover well.

- Cover in foil and bake in the oven at 250 for 45 mins or so. We had about 30 people at this party so I did the toothpick thing to make sure everyone could get a few - so line them up still in the pan and poke a toothpick into each one. I like the glass dish for this as it holds in a lot of heat to keep them from going cold and greasy in the mouth.

They came out great! Each piece was tender with just a hint of crispyness on the exterior.

My picks suck but do crudely illustrate what I did. I'm sorry I didn't get a shot with toothpicks in.  My Wife did that part as I was racing to get the pork butts  pulled at zero-hour. 

Thanks for looking!

Good eats!

bud812

Looks interesting & good.