How to Make Pork Crackling in a Frying Pan
It's easy. If you pay a little bit of attention.
Servings: 1 Person
Calories: 500kcal
Cost: 24p
Equipment
- Frying Pan
- Frying Splatter Guard
- Spatula
- Tongs
Ingredients
There is only one ingredient
- 212g grams Pork Rind for Crackling Enough to fit in the pan, no more
For during cooking
- 100 ml Oil Quite a lot really
For after cooking
- 5 grams Salt To Taste
Instructions
The Ingredient.
- Buy some 'Pork Rind for Crackling' from Morrison's. It's always reduced, so grab a bargain. Or get some from your local butcher.
Preparation.
- Unwrap it and dispose of the wrapping in an appropriate manner. Recycle whatever you can.
Don't cut it up raw!
- A really sharp knife might be OK to cut pork rind, but is it worth the risk? No.
- Scissors are no good unless you are strong and they are very sharp. Don't waste your time.
The solution is to pre-cook it.
- Put it on a plate.
- Stick it in the microwave.
- Cook it for a few minutes. You will see that the rind cooks in patches.
- Then, along the cooked areas, cut the rind with normal scissors. It's really easy.
- Put the uncooked pieces back in the microwave for even cooking. Don't overcook it. You are only trying to start things off. Just make sure there are no raw patches.
- Get a sharp knife (or scissors) and cut it up into very thin strips. This is just so easy now.
- The strips are now thin enough to cook. This is because they will be mostly covered by the oil when cooking.
- This image shows the amount produced from our 212g piece of pork rind.
Prepare the frying pan.
- Get some sunflower oil. Any type of cooking oil, grease, lard is OK.
- Put the sunflower oil in the frying pan.
- You need a fair amount of oil. Half a centimetre deep perhaps. Not deep-frying levels, but enough to cover the pieces. Then turn the heat on.
Start cooking.
- When the oil is hot, add the pork rind. Only add enough rind so that you can still move it around as it cooks. Adding too much is a bad idea. Take it slowly.
- Be careful, the rind will spit violently. Stand well back, or cover with a plate or a frying guard.
- At this point, the rind will start to cook. It will also start to stick together. This is a bit of a pain. Try to separate the pieces from one another. You don't want one large matted block. You want individual pieces that can be moved and flipped for even cooking.
- After a short while, things start to calm down. Remember to keep things moving. You want to cook the pieces evenly.
- Turn the heat down or the cooked bits will burn. Remember, if some parts are burnt, you will have to stop cooking, and that will leave some other parts not done. You will not have solid crunchy pieces at this point. If you pull one out and try it, it won't be hard because it's hot. It will be a bit chewy even if it's done. So, the thing you e really looking for is that all of the pieces are turning golden in colour, with bubbles over MOST of them. You don't want any pieces that look like a golden version of the raw state or not golden at all.
After frying.
- Once the rind is cooked, take them out of the frying pan and put them onto some kitchen paper to absorb the excess fat. Now is the time to add some salt to taste. Adding salt at this point, while they are still warm and a bit oily means that the salt will stick to the cooked crackling pieces.
- If you want to eat them straight away, wait for at least 10 mins for them to cool down. This will make the chewy bits harden and become crunchy. Even cooking is the hardest thing here, so don't worry if not every piece is perfect.
Storage.
- Put the crackling in a storage pot on some fresh kitchen paper. Seal the lid. Put it in the fridge, it will keep fresh for longer.
Notes
The End.
The Calorie mounts are based on 200g of raw pork rind making 100g of pork crackling.