Name: Smoked Porchetta
Yield: Makes about 3½ pounds (1.6 kg)
Ingredients: 1 (5-pound/2.3-kg) pork belly, skin removed and saved for another use (see, step 2); ½ cup (90 g) Diamond Crystal kosher salt; 2 tablespoons coarsely ground black pepper; ½ cup (100 g) sugar; 2 teaspoons pink curing salt (aka Instacure #1); ¼ cup (9 g) loosely packed fresh sage leaves, chopped; ¼ cup (7 g) loosely packed fresh rosemary leaves, chopped; 2 tablespoons fennel pollen or toasted fennel seeds; 12 garlic cloves, smashed

Preparation info

Makes about
3½ pounds

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

The Bacon Bible

By Peter Sherman and Stephanie Banyas

Published 2019

About

This is technically not porchetta; it is pork belly flavored in the style of porchetta and prepared like bacon—but that would be too long of a recipe title. I use this alongside chicken in my Smoked Porchetta and Chicken Pot Pie, and I also love it thinly sliced and served on ciabatta bread with Pickled Fennel, sliced red onion, Bacon Mayonnaise, and hot cherry peppers.