Cooking crackling on its own

Faith

I'm slow cooking a leg of pork (for the Pulled Pork recipe from the cooking club \o/) and I have a big slab of scored skin left aside. I want to make crackling from it. How do I do it on its own? Do I just stick it under the grill for a while? I've never cooked crackling before!

foodaholic

I put it between two baking sheets and bake at highest temp, you may have to drain excess fat as it cooks

Put a tray of water in the oven to stop it smoking too much.

Minder

Make sure it is quite dry - leaving it in the fridge uncovered for a few hours or overnight will dry it. Two stage cooking. Rub some salt into the skin then put it in the oven on a rack when the pork goes in for the pulled pork. You want the fat to render out. I'd even go as far as scraping the jellied fat off the inside once cooked. To crisp it up, jack the heat up in the oven and give it 10 minutes to blister and crisp up.

What temperature are you using for the pulled pork?

Merkin

Mr. Merkin is an expert crackling maker so I've just asked him Faith. Score the skin. Cover liberally with sea salt and a little bit of cracked pepper, massaging it in well. Stick in oven, suspended on a baking wire rack over your oven tray so it doesn't cook in its own fat. Put this in a hot oven at 200-220 degrees for thirty mins and then turn down to 180 and keep and eye on it until it's ready and crispy.

sdp

Also if skin is quite soft and flabby, which if pork not hanging for very long can be, pour boiling water over it, this helps to firm up skin and dries it out, and into fridge cook as above,

Mellor

Minder wrote: »

Make sure it is quite dry - leaving it in the fridge uncovered for a few hours or overnight will dry it. Two stage cooking. Rub some salt into the skin then put it in the oven on a rack when the pork goes in for the pulled pork. You want the fat to render out. I'd even go as far as scraping the jellied fat off the inside once cooked. To crisp it up, jack the heat up in the oven and give it 10 minutes to blister and crisp up.

What temperature are you using for the pulled pork?

IIRC the CC recipe uses the slow cooker not the oven. If the skin was in the opven on its own what sort of temp would you need?

OldBean

Rub with sea salt, black pepper along with some paprika and cayanne pepper if you fancy a change in flavour, leave to dry and pop it under the grill before you serve the pork. I've always found pouring boiling water over it makes it a bit too rubbery.

If you're grilling it all in one slice, keep some tinfoil handy to cover up parts that are getting cooked too fast.

Honey-ec

Mellor wrote: »

IIRC the CC recipe uses the slow cooker not the oven. If the skin was in the opven on its own what sort of temp would you need?

Loads of people (inc me) do it in the oven in a cast iron casserole dish. Temp needs to be about 80C.

OldBean

Mellor wrote: »

IIRC the CC recipe uses the slow cooker not the oven. If the skin was in the opven on its own what sort of temp would you need?

Bear in mind if you're slow cooking with the skin on, you're going to have to leave the cassarole dish/roasting tray uncovered to stop the marinade/stock soaking into the skin and making it soggy, and top up your marinade/stock regularly to stop the pork drying out.

If I'm doing it in the over, I'd start at 80, then bring it to 100 at the end (Some recipes call for it to be 100 at the start, then drop to 80, I always prefer the opposite). You can pop the whole piece with crackling under the grill at the end of the cook.

Faith

Just to clarify, I'm cooking the pulled pork in the slow cooker, and I have removed the skin already, and want to cook it separately in the oven.

Minder

140c for an hour. See what it looks like and if it needs a quick blast in a 200c oven to blow it up and crisp it.

amdublin

Crackling mmmmm!

I love pork. Really think it's a very under appreciated meat.

OldBean

Faith wrote: »

Just to clarify, I'm cooking the pulled pork in the slow cooker, and I have removed the skin already, and want to cook it separately in the oven.

I'd let it dry, then just grill it, both sides. I find the oven too slow to give it texture.

Faith

Thanks for all the pointers! I ended up going with Merkin's method, but by the time dinner was ready, it wasn't looking quite right. So I whacked it under the grill at fairly high heat for a few minutes and that did the job

cruizer101

This thread made me sad. I made the pulled pork recently and just threw the skin out I like crackling