The Meatwave

It had literally been years since I had made a brisket when my Carne-val celebration rolled around back in May of this year. I had this gnawing desire to get back into the brisket game and had plans to buy two of them, smoking one whole in a Texas fashion, and splitting the second into the flat and point, turning the flat into pastrami and the point into burnt ends. During my shopping for the event though, I only happened upon one brisket, leaving a hole in the menu that second brisket was to fill. I ended up abandoning the pastrami idea, but thought I could still accomplish the burnt ends, but use pork belly instead of beef. Not sure why I never thought of this before because pork belly burnt ends ended up being amazing, and even more so when served in steamed bun style.

Burnt ends work partly because the immense amount of fat in a brisket point means it can smoked, cubed, and then smoked even longer and remain still fairly moist and tender. Pork belly has a similar fat make-up that renders it suitable to this type of excessive overcooking.

I started the burnt ends with picking up two pieces of boneless pork belly from my local Asian market and removing the skin on each. I then used my standard pork rub to season the bellies all over, covering every inch in the spice mixture.

I then smoked the pork just as I would have if I were making them to serve as is. This meant smoking low and slow at 225°F until the thickest part of the meat hit around 203°F. I've found this is when the pork fat is at its more luscious, with it being super soft and tender, giving the belly an incredibly pleasing texture on top of the excellent porcine flavor.

I had decided to serve the burnt ends in Chinese steamed buns, and my favorite part of steamed buns I make are the quick pickles. So while the bellies were smoking, I made a batch of these sweet and sour, thinly sliced cucumbers which would give the sugary, saucy pork both a bit of freshness and contrasting acidity in the end.

Once the pork bellies hit their target temperature, I removed them from the smoker, wrapped them butcher paper, and placed them in the Cambro for about and hour. I use this resting step for most all large pieces of meat because it seems to result in both better edge-to-edge juiciness and softens the hard and crusty bark a bit. I figured resting would also be a good thing to do in the case of burnt ends because I hoped it would keep the exterior from becoming overly hard and dry.

After the rest, I cubed up the bellies, which were so tender they cut like butter. I couldn't help but pop a few pieces while doing the slicing and those quick tastes confirmed that the pork belly had an ideal flavor and texture, which I hoped would translate to perfect burnt ends.

To make the burnt ends, I piled the sliced pork into a foil tray and covered the meat with barbecue sauce. I then tossed to evenly coat and placed the tray in the smoker.

I let the pork cook until the sauce was thick and darkened and the edges of the cubes gained extra crispness. This took about two additional hours of smoking. Once done, another taste test let me know that these burnt ends had a great deep, smoky barbecue flavor with some crusty exterior, but still juicy meat.

Next I quickly steamed some Chinese buns and then assembled the final product by nestling a piece of belly into each bun and topping with pickle slices. While short on ingredients, these buns were intensely flavored. All that spice, sauce, and smoke ensured the pork was as tasty as could be, while the pickles were a nice foil to the fatty meat and the bun made it feel like a substantial snack. I was kind of glad I never found that second brisket because I think these ended up just as perfect as can be, although I can imagine brisket burnt ends would be equally delicious given the same treatment.

Published on Thu Jul 27, 2017 by Joshua Bousel

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