Light pork crusts made from trimmed pork belly. Made with dried brine and olive oil before being grilled over low heat, these dried pork skin squares are deliciously crispy.
Enjoy a hearty, crispy, flavorful bite of pork rind. Pork cracklings are available worldwide and are more than just a trendy snack. Whether industrially produced or lovingly prepared at home, they leave a lasting impression on your palace.
Pork rind goes by many different names, from gratton to cracklin ‘ and pork rind to pork rind. Whatever you call them, here ‘s how to cook the best pork crusts at home on your backyard grill.
What is pork crust?
A Southern favorite, pork crackling is pork skin cooked over hot, dry heat until nice and crispy. With the layer of fat underneath and a hint of pork, these crispy bites still have a rich pork flavor, and the grilling takes the flavor to a new level.
To make your own homemade pork crust, you’ll need a high-fat piece of pork and a large surface area. Some people choose fillet or shoulder here, but I prefer pork belly. The meat’s large surface area and thick layer of fat make it rich and flavorful, as seen in our smoked pork belly recipe.
Contrasting our low and slow approach to our smoked pork belly recipe , we will be cooking our pork chops on the grill. Why? To create that iconic crispy top whenever we cook the pork over hot dry heat. This means we need to do three things: slice the meat to remove excess moisture, salt the pork belly overnight to extract more water, and cook over hot indirect heat.
How to make grilled pork rinds
- Rest and Dry: Allow your meat to rest and dry for at least 24 hours. Sufficient to dry meat in a cold refrigerator or meat cabinet.
- Prepare Your Grill – Whether you’re using a charcoal grill, electric grill, or gas grill, prepare your grill to ensure it’s at the right cooking temperatures to cook up a delicious pork rind.
- Tenderize: Now take a moment to manually tenderize your meat. You can die, do hit the pork with a hammer. If there is too much moisture, pat dry with a clean paper towel.
- Score, score, score: Gently score the skin for a crispy crunch. You can choose to annotate in a grid pattern or any other pattern of your choice.
- Salt it Down: Add plenty of salt to your branded pork. Note: If you have a lot of moisture left in the meat, you can cover the meat with salt and let it rest for at least an hour. Then you can remove the excess salt.
- Add to Heat – Now you’re ready to put your pork rind on your grill. When slicing pork rinds into small squares, placing the meat directly on the grill doors is not recommended. You can place your pork rinds in a sheet pan.
- Cover, Don’t Shift: Maintaining a consistently high temperature is necessary to produce the best-tasting pork chops. Cover your grill when cooking pork rinds. You’ll be tempted to check it out often, but don’t stop. Every time you open the grill lid, you lose a large amount of heat.
- Serve and enjoy: After a few hours, your pork rind should quickly become golden and crispy. Get out of the fire. Season with your favorite dry batter. geniuses!
The crispiest pork rinds can take quite a long time to make, but the salty, crispy, meaty texture is worth it.
Why is it important to mark the skin?
Scoring the skin of your pork cut is a mandatory step in making Greaves. Take a sharp knife and make thin slits in the skin across the width of the pork chunk.
When scoring the skin, be careful not to cut too deeply into the fat to get into the meatiest part of your pork cut.
It is necessary to make superficial incisions in the skin. Flat cuts allow air and moisture under the skin. This will help get crispy pork beef.
Why is salt important?
Salt has a variety of functions in the production of pork cattle. It removes moisture from the meat and removes fat from the meat as it cooks, giving it flavor. All are important to achieve crisp texture.
The best chicharron needs a lot of salt. There is a science behind salt in the kitchen. Once you’ve marked your cut of pork, the salt will soak under the skin to remove excess water. Less water, less moisture results in crispier pork crusts.
Why is it important to cook on dry heat?
Dry heat cooking techniques like grilling or roasting, smoking, or roasting don’t add the moisture you’ve written so hard to remove from pork cuts. High temperatures are required to achieve the desired result. Pork rinds are delicious, but mushy rinds aren’t the best.
Cooking over dry heat is vital. Pork cattle are at their best when they have a crispy texture. You can achieve a crispy texture by cooking with dry heat, either with a grill, oven, or smoker. Dry heat at high temperatures allows meat and fat to cook without adding moisture.
Stay
If you’re lucky enough to have leftover pork crusts, whenever you store them properly so they’re extremely delicious the next day.
How to store leftover pork rinds
After your pork rind has been cooked and enjoyed, you can now store the rest of the pork rind in an airtight container. This could be your favorite Tupperware storage container or freezer bag.
You can store your leftover pork rinds in your refrigerator for up to four days. However, if you do decide to freeze leftover pork cracklings(this method is not recommended as there is a greater chance of changing the texture of the crust), try not to freeze them for longer than two months.
He They were leftover pork rinds
There are two methods of reheating pork rinds that do not affect the flavor and texture of the pork rinds.
- Oven: To reheat pork crusts, place on a baking sheet in a preheated 350 degree Fahrenheit oven for 15 minutes.
- Air Fryer: Heat your air fryer to 400 degrees Fahrenheit, place your pork crust on parchment paper and heat for 10 minutes.
It is not recommended to reheat leftover pork rinds in the microwave. Chewy, mushy pork rinds are usually the result of reheating in the microwave.
Writer & content creator. BBQ fanatic!
