Kamado Cooking Series: Pork Belly BBQ Burnt Ends
ittle nuggets of joy are absolutely incredible - either prepped with a salad and chips or as part of a big buffet or even tapas.
If you have never made Burnt Ends before, you may not know that the cut of meat used is from the belly of the pig. Selected supermarkets may carry pork belly or visit your local butchers. To tempt your taste buds, in this recipe we'll be slicing up the pork belly into cubes, slow cooking them for 2 and a half hours and smoking them with cherry wood. The finished dish will include sweet honey-glazed bites of joy that taste incredible.
Utensils
Sharp knife
Cutting board
Griller
Mixing bowl
Baking tray or oven
Probe (i.e. skewer or toothpick)
Tin foil
Ingredients
Pork belly
Cherry wood (you don't have to smoke the meat, but you could also try apple, oak or hickory wood)
Brown sugar
Honey
Butter
Chosen meat rub
BBQ sauce
1) Prep Your BBQ
The first step is to fire up the Kamado Monolith grill! With this specific BBQ you can use three different types of charcoal. The most popular choice would be lump wood charcoal as it's pure with very little additives in it. Binchotan charcoal is a Japanese charcoal that is so pure it's virtually smoke-free. Finally there is charcoal briquettes which tend to last longer but they are not as pure as lump wood or charcoal Binchotan. Don't forget to add your cherry wood if you wish to smoke the meat. To light the charcoals, you have various brands of firelighters that you can light and place underneath the charcoals - shut the lid down and that will slowly light your outdoor grill. Alternatively, for a faster method of lighting your outdoor BBQ, you can use the Mono-lighter Electric Fire Starter. Plug it in, point it at the charcoal for roughly 60 seconds and it will heat them up quicker then any firelighter. Close the lid to allow the BBQ to get up to temperature and you're good to go!
2) Bringing Your BBQ Up To The Desired Temperature
You'll want to ensure that your ceramic Kamado grill is brought up to the desired cooking temperature. To do this, simply open the Daisy wheel at the top of the oven to about 2 inches wide. You'll then need to do the same for the vent at the bottom of the grill, opening the vent about 2 inches wide. Leave the BBQ to gradually heat up the correct temperature. You're aiming to get it between 135 degrees Celsius (275 degrees Fahrenheit).
3) Prep The Pork Belly
4) Cooking
Once your Kamado BBQ is up to temperature, place the pork belly cubes on the grill and close the lid. Leave them cooking for 15/20 minutes and go back to check on them. Close the bottom vent completely and close the top vent on your ceramic grill to allow a 2cm gap as this will prevent the BBQ to get any hotter.
After roughly 2/2.5 hours probe your pork belly cubes to test for resistance. Ensure the meat is a dark shade of red. Take them off the grill and into a tray and cover with butter, sugar and a drizzle of honey - no specific amounts, but this will be down to personal taste preference. Once covered, you're going to place some tin foil over the tray to cover the pork belly cubes and you can place the tray back into the BBQ or grill and slow cook for about another hour.
You can then remove the cubes and test for resistance with your probe. At this point, there should be no resistance and ready to fall apart.
To finish, cover them with BBQ sauce, pop them back on the BBQ or grill for 5/10 minutes to get a beautiful BBQ glaze. You have created an easy succulent, juicy meal with little fuss on your ceramic Kamado grill.
Once you've hacked this recipe, why not try some of our other recipes that can be found here on our Kamada Cooking Series blog posts. You can also check out our YouTube channel that include
