Pork Belly and Steak Tacos

I am not a fancy chef. I don’t have a fancy kitchen. I don’t use top of the line kitchen gadgets. To be honest, I’m not even the best cook and I don’t have any type of training in the kitchen. I do however, love to cook and love to eat. If I’m ever asked what I like to do in my free time or what my hobbies include, I’m quick to say “cooking”. All that said… last week I started wanting to make pork belly tacos. I had them at a restaurant a while back and wanted to try to make them myself. But the thing is (plus another truth bomb), I didn’t even know what pork belly was. Kinda still don’t. But I went down the street to our local butcher shop and asked if they have any pork belly. The guy behind the counter had no idea and had to ask someone else, but they did, and I got some. So, I got home with this hunk of meat and just stuck it in the fridge.

The next day, I realized I have no idea how to cook this stuff. I looked through about 40 pork belly recipes and decided to just come up with something and if it didn’t work out, I’ve only wasted $3 and a few hours of my life. Plus, I got steak for the tacos too, so if the pork belly was a fail, at least we would still be eating.

So, here’s how this went down. First, I cut the skin (yes, actual pig skin) off the hunk of meat. Then I made a brine. I poured 3 tbsp salt and 2 tbsp sugar into about 2 quarts of water and boiled it. Once it boiled I turned it off and let it cool. I put the pork belly (1 pound) into a big bowl and poured the water over it. I put the lid on and let it sit in the refrigerator for about 15 hours. From what I read, anywhere from 12-24 hours should be good.

I was making some marinade for the steak/sauce to put on the tacos, so I made extra to cook the pork belly in. Recipe at the bottom. After the pork was brined (is that even how to say that?), I added it (just the pork, not the water) to a dish and poured about 1/2 cup of the marinade/sauce over it. I put the dish into my 400-degree F oven and cooked it for an hour. After an hour, I turned the heat down to 275 degrees F and cooked it for another 3 hours, until it was pretty tender. I originally thought it would cook at 275 for 1 hour but it was still super hard after an hour and I ended up cooking it for an additional 2 hours. That’s a long time.

After it cooked, it looked just like a pork roast to me and that’s not what I was going for, so I heated up my cast iron skillet and charred the pork belly on all sides and then it looked pretty fan-effing-tastic. After that I just cut it up into small, taco-appropriate-sized pieces.

Short version for how I made the steak because the full recipe is at the bottom. I got a flank steak at the butcher store too. I cut it in half, so it would fit in a zip lock bag and in my grill pan and I marinated it for several hours in the sauce. When I was ready to cook it, I heated my cast iron grill pan to medium high heat, turned on the vent fan, and got a towel ready to fan the smoke detector. I cooked it for 3 minutes on each side then let it rest for 5 minutes before slicing into strips, then cutting the strips into smaller pieces. It was a perfect medium-rare. I just happen to prefer medium, so I threw those pieces back into the pan for a few seconds. The smoke alarm seriously went into overdrive and thankfully it was a beautiful day in the mid-60’s so we just opened the front door. While the steaks were resting I whipped together the sauce really quick, recipe at the bottom.

Back to the tacos…. I served the tacos on warmed corn and flour tortillas (eater’s preference). I placed a generous portion of the steak and/or pork belly onto each tortilla and topped the meat with sliced cucumber, shredded carrots, cilantro, pickled onions, and the best ever sauce.

Truly delicious tacos. Time consuming, but pretty easy and worth it. We will be having these again! Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy the recipe. The recipe is just below, and its super jumbled because its a bit longer than my usual recipes. Click for a printable version.