I’ve been experimenting more with pork belly ever since Costco started carrying it.  It’s not a cut you normally find at groceries, and I’m too lazy to drive to the Asian stores.  I was quite giddy with excitement when I found large packs of the belly o’ the pig at Costco.  My husband was giddy too since he gets to eat the results of the experiments, and usually they turn out good.

I wanted to make kabobs, so I got a pack a few weeks ago, but I didn’t have time to cook it.  So, I decided to test how well pork belly freezes after marinating.  They freeze well by the way.

I got a gallon sized freezer bag and put it in a bowl.  I made the marinade directly in the bag.  I dumped in finely minced garlic, ginger, gochujang, soy sauce, sesame oil, rice wine, and honey.  I squished the bag to mix the sauce up.  Gochujang is a recent addition to my pantry, and I have been trying it out in my meat dishes.  Gochujang is a Korean red chili pepper paste.  I got the medium heat paste, since we can’t handle anything too spicy.

Here is my 4 lb tray of sliced pork belly.  I used my kitchen shears to cut the pork into 1.5″ chunks.

I dropped the meat nuggets into the bag and squished everything together.  I let the bag sit in the fridge overnight, so the flavors can penetrate the meat.  Then I stuck the bag in the freezer for a few weeks.  When I was ready to cook them, I defrosted the bag in the fridge.

Before I started threading the skewers, I soaked the sticks in water.  I’ve always read to soak the sticks for at least 20 minutes to prevent catching on fire.  I don’t know how likely dry sticks catch on fire.  I only soaked these for about 10 minutes, and they were fine.  Shrug.

I got a bag of mini bell peppers, also from Costco.  I cut up 2 onions into large skewerable chunks.  I didn’t season the vegetables because they were going to get saucy from my hands, and I like their natural sweetness when grilled.

Here are the babies ready for the grill.

Almost ready…

Nom nom nom, meeeeat.  Compost the sticks after you finish eating!

Pork Belly Kabobs
Ingredients
– 4 lb tray of sliced pork belly
– 2 tbsp gochujang
– 2 tbsp honey
– 2 tbsp rice wine
– 2 tbsp soy sauce
– 2 tbsp sesame oil
– half head of garlic
– 1.5 inch knob of ginger
– 2 onions
– Costco sized bag of mini bell peppers
-skewers

Directions
– Finely mince the garlic and ginger.  Mix it with the other condiments to make a marinade.
– Cut the pork belly into 1.5 inch pieces.  Let the pork sit in the marinade overnight.
– Cut the onion into large pieces, leave the mini bell peppers whole.
– Soak the skewers if you don’t want to risk a flaming stick of meat.  If you don’t soak them, let me know if they really catch on fire!
– Thread the meat and vegetables onto the skewers.  
– Cook them on medium low heat on the grill for about 10 minutes, turning them once.  Cook them until the pork fat gets crispy and charred.