Melt in the mouth pork belly strips - how?!!

[soupfiend]

I think we must have experimented with hundreds of these bloody things, slow cooking, cooking covered, cooking uncovered, cooking covered then uncovered, cooking low temp, cooking high temp, confit, cooking in marinade, baking then grilling, air frying, steaming the list is endless

But the combination is nver right, if I manage to get the meat bit of the strip soft and unctuous, the top is flabby and sticky. If I manage to get the fat top bit crispy and snappy, the meat bit is then dried out or tough

Where am I going wrong. We buy the strips in Aldi or Lidl, Im sure someone will say its the strips, but how can it be, they're just bog standard strips, I try to get the ones with lots of fat on.

Ive just burned another load of them, ruined.

We buy from Tesco and Aldi and get melt in the mouth by cooking low on a rack set over the roasting tin, rather than flat on the tin itself. Turning them halfway through.

Oh you have reminded me I bought some bloody skewers for this very purpose that exactly fit my little tin and the time I did it like that they were quite good.

Forgot that

What temp?

The best way I've found is to do the meat and the crackling separate - probably unorthodox but I just haven't found a method that suits both elements perfectly. I pressure cook or slow cook the meat so it's meltingly soft, and stick the crackling in a very hot oven.

You could poach the meat (skin on) first in stock until tender.
Wrap in parchment and foil, then weigh down overnight in the fridge.
Slice up the next day and crisp on the skin side in a pan/under the grill, or crisp up in the oven.

Ive read about this technique I think, I wasnt sure if it would work with strips rather than a whole cut of belly

I do them submerged in apple juice in a low oven for three hours.

Then rub marinade or sauce on...either SE Asian style or honey and mustard and put them in the air fryer.

Our local Thai restaurant says they cook it long and slow until it’s tender then drop it briefly in deep fat fryer to get crispy crackling. Never tried it tho.

DH (whose father is a chef) would always split the fat from the meat. Slow cook the meat. Fast cook the crackling.