Pork Belly Taco

040/18: Pork Belly and Black Pudding Taco

040/18 – Pork Belly and Black Pudding Taco:

More Tacos and another recipe from the Breddos Tacos book! This time it was Pork Belly and Black Pudding Taco with Tomatillo Salsa and Crackling. You can’t beat Pork Belly and Black Pudding so I was looking forward to this!

This recipe is from the Breddos Tacos cook book – You can buy the book by clicking the link below:

 

The previous taco cooks from this book were:

029/18: Red Curry Paste Braised Short-Rib Taco

029/18: Red Curry Paste Braised Short-Rib Taco

The Meat:

1kg of Pork Belly from Turner and George for £8.

The Prep:

I mixed Maldon sea salt, smoked paprika, fennel seeds, coriander seeds and ground cloves together then rubbed them all over the meat. This was left in the fridge for 24 hours.

When the 24 hours was up I rinsed the meat under the tap, patted it dry and placed it skin side up in a roasting tray along with 1.5 litres of chicken stock. Another load of salt was rubbed into the skin.

Pork Belly Taco

It would have been sensible to pour the chicken stock in the tray once the tray was in the BBQ hut rather than do it in the kitchen then have to carry it slowly outside trying to stop the stock hitting the salt! (next time!)

Pork Belly Taco

I still have some heat beads to use up so I fired up the WSM with 1 bag of heat beads and half a chimney of lumpwood poured on top. This was left for half an hour to settle then the WSM was put together with half a bucket of hot water in the water pan. This was left for another half hour to settle.

The Cook:

The recipe says to do half an hour at 475F to crisp the skin then drop to 300F for 3.5 hours. Not really possible in a smoker and I couldn’t face firing up the grill to crisp the skin so I just put it in at 300F along with some Apple chunks from Smokewood Shack. I gave it 4 hours and checked it with a probe, the meat had no resistance at all, time to take it off! Pork Belly Taco

The skin hadn’t crisped up at all so I whacked it under the grill:

Pork Belly Taco

Time to Rest:

Great colour to the meat but the crackling looked a bit like a monster!

Pork Belly Taco

I left the meat to rest and made the tomatillo salsa: Jalapeno chillies, garlic, tomatillos, shallot, avocado, coriander, lime and salt in a blender. The tomatillos were out a tin from Cool Chile, I haven’t seen fresh ones in Scotland before!

Pork Belly Taco

Next I toasted some Wahaca tortillas in a pan then pan fried the black pudding.

Time to slice the pork belly! The meat was really soft and juicy.

Pork Belly Taco

Time to Eat:

Tortilla, black pudding, pork belly, tomatillo salsa, a bit of hot sauce and some coriander.

Pork Belly Taco

Quite a smoke ring from the Apple wood, wasn’t really aiming for that!

Pork Belly TacoSummary:

Quite a simple cook this one but another tasty taco recipe from Breddos. Slow cooked pork belly is always a treat and this was nice with the black pudding. The recipe calls for 400g of pork belly but I used a kilo and it was pretty salty. If I cooked it again I would cut the salt right down and/or rinse it for longer before cooking. Another change would be to crisp the skin before it goes in the smoker, even if it’s in the oven!

Another good dish to cook in the smoker if you have something else cooking, good use of space and could be a nice lunch whilst dinner is cooking!

Cook Difficulty: 2/5 
Cook Duration: Quick: 2/5
Cook Equipment: Weber Smokey Mountain
Cook Method: Low and Slow
Charcoal: Heat Beads
Smoking Wood: Smokewood Shack Apple
Cook temperature: 225f
Cook time: 4 hours
Internal temperature: Unknown
Notes: 1: Crisp the skin to start with even if it’s in the oven.

2: Less salt and/or more rinsing

THE BOOK:

This recipe is from the Breddos Tacos cook book – You can buy the book by clicking the link below:

 

CONNECT WITH ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA:

  


SUBSCRIBE TO THIS BLOG VIA EMAIL

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Back to the Home Page

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *