Meat Sweats: Pork Belly Burnt Ends Always Get The People Going
When you're cooking for friends and family, there's always a chance you run into a few picky eaters. Maybe they've had a few bad experiences with eating dry brisket. Maybe they're just not a fan of the mess that ribs can leave behind. Maybe they've had too much bland pulled pork that was cooked in a crock pot. Either way, you're always looking to please the most amount of people you possibly can with your cooking but we know it's virtually impossible to please everybody.
Until you smoke up a batch of pork belly burnt ends. In which case everybody is happy and stuffing their face full of your meat.
They are sweet. They are salty. They are savory. They have a little bit of everything going on. Plus when they're already cubed up into little bite sized pieces, it's hard for anybody to resist walking by a platter of them without popping one or 7 in their mouth. And the best part of it all is that they're super simple to make.
- All we did here was take a whole cut of pork belly, remove the skin if you didn't already purchase your pork belly skinless.
- Slice it up into 1" cubes, liberally season them up with your rub of choice (for this cook I used the Holy Gospel rub from Meat Church)
- Throw them on the smoker at 265-275 for about 2-2.5 hours or until the bark is set and they feel nice and squishy.
- Pull them off the smoker and cover in your BBQ sauce of choice. You can also cut the sauce with some apple juice if you want. That mostly just depends on the consistency of whatever sauce you are using.
- Back on the smoker for another 30-45 minutes until the sauce sets and becomes more of a glaze.
- Rest for a few minutes, and then it's down the hatch.
Also for anyone in the Philly area, we'll be having a Meat Sweats BBQ pop-up at Urban Saloon (2120 Fairmount Ave) this Saturday 4/9 at noon. Unfortunately pork belly burnt ends won't be on the menu. But we'll have brisket, ribs, pulled pork, a ton of sides and a few desert options. So come swing through if you're around and want some delicious barbecue to go along with your Masters Saturday.
