Ad Hoc at Home: Pork Belly Confit

Part of the reason I put the Land of Plenty series to bed is because last week I received a bevy of new cookbooks, among them, the highly anticipated cookbook from Thomas Keller – Ad Hoc at Home. There’s been a lot of press surrounding this book launch, so there’s a good chance you’ve heard about it already. (WSJ article | New York Times | WSJ/AdHoc recipes)

Thomas Keller is the man; arguably the most heralded American chef of my time. You can read more about him here. His first cookbook, The French Laundry Cookbook, is extremely popular, though it’s notorious for being extremely complicated, requiring many advanced techniques, ingredients, and equipment which make many of the dishes very challenging to the home chef (The Dude though). Ad Hoc is Keller’s more casual, family style restaurant, so I think this cookbook has already been very popular due to its approachability.

Ad Hoc at Home features many of the dishes you may have grown up with, such as burgers, chicken and dumpling soup, or fried chicken, but there’s often a slight increase in the level of involvement. Keller’s notoriety for being extremely precise and detail-oriented shines through on each recipe. At first some of the steps may seem a bit over the top, or unnecessary, but so far I’ve really enjoyed it. Each step of a recipe has firm intent, I’ve already been taught a few techniques in a very approachable manner, and I connect with Keller’s “process”. I wouldn’t say the cookbook is “hard”, but it does require some time, planning, and if you’re like me, constant re-reading of the recipe throughout the process.

I prepared four of the recipes on Sunday evening, but there are tons of steps and photos of each, so I will start with just one – Pork Belly Confit, which I served as an appetizer.

The term confit gets tossed around quite a bit, though this is a true, traditional confit preparation. The pork is cooked in fat and can be submerged in the fat and preserved in the refrigerator for quite a long time.

To get going with this recipe, I first acquired my pork belly. I found out the hard way that Whole Foods Buckhead doesn’t carry it. I asked the butcher why they didn’t have it, he laughed and said, “we cater to Buckhead”. No fat back either. So I picked up a small piece from Star Provisions. It was much smaller than the 2.5lb slab recommended, but my ~ 1lb piece was plenty as an appetizer for four people.

The pork brines for about 12 hours before cooking. This was a cooked brine of rosemary, thyme, pepper, garlic, parsley, honey, and salt.

Submerged, ready to place in the fridge.

The next morning I set my alarm for 5AM, dragged my ass downstairs, then melted some lard and duck fat, submerged the pork, went back to sleep, and let the pork cook at 200F for five hours.

Eventually it looked like this.

Cross-section shot.

Then I poured the fat into a firm container, covered it with wrap, set a heavy can on it to press it, then it went into the fridge for six hours.

Here’s what it looked like once the fat set.

When I was ready to sear the pork, I took it out of the fat and cleaned it off fairly well.

I scored the fat side, then cut it into squares.

Then I seared the belly, fat side down, on low heat for 15 minutes. After that, it went into the oven for 10 minutes to warm through.

Finish with some salt (Australian pink salt from my momma)

Then we dug in.

Divine. With each bite, the fat melted and pressed into the flesh of the pork, creating a warm, and savory bite of the best pork belly I’ve had to date. This is the way fat was meant to be consumed.

I wasn’t sure if maybe I was just a little biased on how much I loved this dish due to the effort I put forth, but last night I was at an amazing restaurant in Charleston, I ordered a pork belly appetizer, and I’ve got to say, Keller’s pork belly confit was much better. More flavor, and the texture just didn’t compare.

Thanks to Broderick for these last few photos.

This was one of the Pinot’s we drank with the first few courses of the meal. It was fairly good Burgundy, for under $25 at Tower on Piedmont.

Tagged as: ad hoc at home, burgundy, confit, duck fat, fat, pinot noir, pork, pork belly, thomas keller