Ok, strap yourselves in folks because I am about to do something I never thought I would do an showcase something that yours truly made to eat. My entire life I have been someone that either was terrible at cooking, or saw the monetary value in paying someone else to do it which is often the case here in Vietnam and in Thailand where I lived previously. I started cooking for myself because I decided to get more protein into my diet and that is tough to do unless you are either going to spend a fortune on steak restaurants or you put some planning into making it yourself. I knew I was a bad cook so when a friend of mine started raving about his air fryer and how easy it is to make almost anything in it, I was intrigued. When I discovered that you can get one on our version of Amazon for a mere $22 or so. I was sold.
Ok, so the story goes like this: I was in the walk in cooler at the nearby butcher shop looking at all the cuts of steak and feeling like they are really pricy because they are. I was eying up the pork which is always much cheaper but remembering that the pork chop I had recently was so bad that I threw half of it away.
Then like magic, a very friendly and well-spoken Vietnamese staff member of the restaurant next door walked in and started chatting with me. He gave me a bunch of advice and I ended up leaving there with a bottle of wine and some cheese as well.
So went home with this glorious looking piece of pork and a little bit of fear about what it might taste like.
I'm too lazy to flip the image so I'll just tell you that this is pork collar or as it is called in other parts of the world, pork neck because I'm presuming that is where it comes from on the pig. It looks incredible though doesn't it?
This doesn't change the fact that I have never cooked something like this. I did some searching online and found some easy recipes and here is the one I kind of followed right here. It tells you to gather a bunch of things but I don't have just all the spices in the world so here is what I used.
- Canola (grapeseed) oil
- Kikoman soy sauce
- salt
- pepper
- garlic powder
- nothing else
In the past I have been outraged by how difficult pork belly is to cut so I was halfway expecting this thing to be as much of a pain in the ass. It wasn't. This is very easy to cut with a regular knife. I cut the thing into about 3cm thick strips all the way across with the idea being to eventually make it crispy.
Then I put a bit of all the ingredients above into a plastic container to marinate for the entire day after poking a bunch of holes in the pork with a fork. All of this was really easy to do. A couple of times throughout the day I would shake the container to keep the juices flowing. I have no idea if this is necessary or if it even does anything but whatever, that's how my day went.
Then I preheated my air fryer to the maximum setting which is 200 degrees C (around 400 degrees I guess Fahrenheit - we don't have F here) After 4 minutes or so I opened the fryer and chucked all the pork collar in there and was lucky to have just enough surface space.
I left it in there for 12 minutes stopping to flip the pieces once. I don't know how necessary that is and will not bother in the future. It's basically a small convection oven so I don't think flipping is really necessary since the entire idea of the appliance is that it cooks evenly everywhere inside of there.
I couldn't really tell if it was done or not but I took one piece out after 12 minutes and let it cool long enough to try it. It was juicy and wonderful
That may not impress some of the better cooks out there but to me this is wonderful that I can make something even somewhat approaching looking like this. The meat basically just fell apart in your mouth and none of it was sinewy or overly chewy. It was just wonderful. I will say this though, I wish I had and I will in the future, left it in there for longer because a crispy exterior would have been nice. Perhaps next time I will take most of it out after 12 minutes and then leave the rest in there until it starts to look like pork cracklin.
There is one downside of this fatty meat though and that is it will make a mess of the interior of your air fryer.
I suppose I'll have to wash that before I cook something else in there. It's teflon coated so it really doesn't take that long. Just chuck some soapy water in there and let it sit for half an hour.
It was a pretty good dinner that surprised me and this is great news. The "good" steaks that I have been buying lately cost 3-4 times as much as this cut of pork so I will likely be looking for more recipes to make using this meat in the future.
Not long ago I said that air fryer people were the crossfit people of the cooking world and be that as it may, I am now a converted member of the cult. Air fryers are awesom