Belly pork with crackling. Photograph: Felicity Cloake
I'm an out-and-proud fat-fancier. The tender, melting wobble of it, that satisfying oily crunch – how can mere meat hope to compete? Despite the inexorable rise of the healthy living skinless low-fat chicken breast I'm clearly not alone – in the last decade, pork belly has replaced lamb shank on menus as the modish cut of choice, and whoever's ordering all that fat is unlikely to be leaving it in a prissy little pile at the side of the plate.
Good as it tastes, for me fat is a largely a textural pleasure, like chicken's feet or water biscuits, and pork crackling is surely the supreme example of this: a blistered top, as dry and crunchy as an autumn leaf, hiding a layer of yielding, creamy fat beneath. There can be no greater disappointment in a cook's repertoire than sub-standard, flabby crackling; such wasted potential is enough to make you weep – but moisture is the enemy of crispy crackling. Much better to make sure it doesn't happen in the first place.
Score the fat, but don't cut all the way though to the meat below. Photograph: Felicity Cloake The basic principles of great crackling seem simple enough. First of all, the scoring. There's no debate on this: everyone tells you to score the rind, usually using a Stanley knife, in vertical lines about a finger's width apart. This is to allow the heat to penetrate the fat, and, as it bubbles up through the cuts, to baste the top during cooking. If you cut too far down, and reach the meat, you will allow juices to escape as well, which is obviously much less desirable.
Sadly, this is where the happy crackling consensus breaks down. Post-scoring, everyone goes their own separate ways in search of the porcine holy grail. Unable to find even two recipes which agreed exactly on what to do and when, I identify seven main schools of thought, and then go in search of the raw material for my quest: slices of pork belly. Belly because it's the ultimate crackling cut, and also because in the course of my research, I have learnt from the great Simon Hopkinson that: "There are two simple things necessary for crackling: a nice dry rind, and a good thick layer of fat underneath it." And I reckon four layers of fat will be even better than one.
The butcher at the Ginger Pig is slightly surprised by my mission. Why don't I just put them in a pan to crisp up, he suggests. When I explain the highly scientific nature of my experiment, he recommends salt, and possibly a blow torch, "the kind you use on cr̬me brulees". His colleague clearly has bigger ideas Р"what about one of those wallpaper stripping things?" he chips in. They are really hot. I briefly consider investigating tool hire, but then remember that I am not Heston Blumenthal. Besides, I have enough work to do.
Two of my recipes call for advance preparation. Simon Hopkinson wants me to pour boiling water over the meat to encourage the rind to shrink away from the fat, a technique common in Chinese duck cookery, where it is used to tighten the skin before the bird is hung out to dry. As this process directly contradicts the need for a 'nice dry rind', the ritual must be performed the day before cooking, to allow the pork sufficient desiccation time after its nice hot shower.
Once the pallid slice is safely swaddled in a clean tea towel and stowed in the darkness of the fridge, I turn to recipe two, from the food blogger Gastronomy Domine. As the most labour-intensive of the methods, I'm expecting great things from this one, particularly as it employs the closest thing to a wallpaper stripper in my possession. Having rubbed salt into the rind as if "the pork was somebody [I'm] particularly fond of who is demanding a lovely exfoliating massage" (rather than Fanny Cradock's "as if into the face of your worst enemy") I'm instructed to "prepare to look slightly unbalanced in front of any visitors," and then to "take a hairdryer to the skin of the meat until it's absolutely bone dry."
Gastronomy Domine's method suggests using a hairdryer to make sure the fat is completely free of moisture. Photograph: Felicity Cloake Rhythmically blow-drying a strip of pig is a surprisingly relaxing activity. I find myself admiring the delicate flush of the skin at one end, and stopping to solicitously trim a stray bristle before it catches in the heat. Once the rind is as dry as a sun-baked Saharan skull, it goes into another clean tea towel (these seem to be important in crackling preparation, presumably because they absorb moisture while allowing the meat to breathe) and joins the first one in the fridge.
The last method requiring advance preparation is Delia Smith's. For "genuinely crisp crackling", she says firmly, I must remove the meat's wrapping as soon as I get home (well, it's only been 20 minutes), "dry thoroughly and leave uncovered in the fridge". Relieved to be saved further tea towels, I pat it tenderly with a piece of kitchen paper, then decant it on to a plate and put it next to the remaining four pieces in their jaunty checked paper, ready for tomorrow's porcine extravaganza.
The next morning, I remove the scalded pork, which I have named Simon, from the fridge, and put it in the coolest part of the kitchen, as he requests. I would like to claim that I hung it in accordance with his specific instructions, but somehow I have neglected to purchase a meat hook so I prop it up next to an open window and leave it to it. Around midday, I become convinced it will have attracted predatory wildlife, but when I get home, it's still there. Possibly foxes are over the whole pork belly thing already.
With half an hour to go, I salt Simon, pushing the stuff well into his fat as instructed, and turn the oven up to maximum. (Past experience, and a devotion to the teachings of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, have taught me that an initial blast of heat is vital if you're to have any chance in the crispness stakes.) Ten minutes before I'm planning to put the pork in, I salt a fresh slice, in accordance with the instructions of the Good Housekeeping Institute. Then, with a deep breath, I'm ready to assemble the troops.
Simon, still strangely pale from yesterday's hot shower, can go straight into the roasting tin. Good Housekeeping's slice must be patted dry, then "smeared liberally" with oil, and anointed with a little more salt. In accordance with the Leiths Cookery Bible, I brush a further piece with oil, and sprinkle it with salt – cutting out the pre-salting and drying process prescribed by the Good Housekeeping Cookery Book. Delia's pork, meanwhile, must be kept away from the Maldon until the very last minute, "as … salt draws out moisture". ("On no account," she warns in her Complete Cookery Course, "put any fat near the crackling" – thereby pitting her method against the combined forces of Leiths and Good Housekeeping. The drama!)
The high-maintenance blow-dried pork requires a further salt massage – my kitchen is beginning to feel like some sort of pork spa – before being finished off with a torrent of molten goose fat. Its skin blisters satisfyingly, presaging, I feel, great things. The last two slices will receive their special treatment just before serving, so I simply salt them and pop them in with the others.
I can hardly bear to step away from the oven during the 15-minute 'scorch' period. When I do leave it unattended for two minutes to welcome the crack Crackling Expert I have recruited for the occasion, smoke starts seeping out of the door. The slices seem to be browning nicely, however, so I open the window slightly wider, and crank up the extractor fan until it's time to turn the temperature down to a more reasonable 180˚C. Ten minutes before they're due to come out (after a glass of wine to steady my nerves), I switch on the grill, creating yet more smoke.
Pork belly with crackling emerging from the oven. Photograph: Felicity Cloake When I take the pork slices out of the oven, I have to admit they all look pretty good, if worryingly similar. A few abject failures would have made the judging process easier, I say to the Expert, who is breathing in their lardy scent with an expression of utter bliss. "How could you wish for soggy crackling?" she asks incredulously, indicating the magnificent nut-brown vista ahead of us.
Leaving the rest of the meat in her tender care, I cut the fat and rind from the last two pieces. One goes under the hot grill for four minutes, while I stick the other in the microwave for two. (The microwave, according to various online sages, is a foolproof way of rescuing disappointing crackling.) The Expert, who has not encountered this idea before, is torn between watching it go round and round in fascinated disbelief, and the fear that it will explode, blinding her with a jet of hot pig fat. In fact, it just puffs up slightly. The grilled crackling, however, turns a deeper shade of tan: it's Peter Andre to the five Katie Prices resting beside the cooker.
Crackling Expert is salivating to start judging, so I allow her to begin tapping the slices to assess their texture. We then move on to visual appeal, followed by 'the crunch test' in which we both take turns to bite into a piece, while the other rates the sound effect. Finally, I allow her tuck in.
Pork belly with crackling as cooked according to seven different methods. Photograph: Felicity Cloake Here, recorded for all time, are the results:
1. Delia Smith
• Patted dry then stored uncovered in the fridge, salted at the last minute
Tap: 7/10
Visual appeal: 8/10
Crunch: 8.5/10
Taste: 8/10
• Moderately crunchy all the way through, but this needed more salt (possibly because this wasn't rubbed in beforehand as with the others)
2. Leiths
• Brushed with oil and salt
Tap: 5/10
Visual appeal: 7/10
Crunch: 2/10
Taste: 3/10
• The chewiest of the slices, it required scissors to cut, and lacked that vital crunch
3. Good Housekeeping
• Pre-salted, patted dry, liberally oiled then salted
Tap: 6/10
Visual appeal: 9/10
Crunch: 7.5/10
Taste: 8/10
• A compromise: Crackling Expert enjoyed the friable, crumbly texture, but I felt this one lacked substance
4. Simon Hopkinson - runner up
• Scalded, aired, massaged with salt
Tap: 9/10
Visual appeal: 8.5/10
Crunch: 9/10
Taste: 8.5./10
• This was consistently crisp, but the fat beneath was slightly less unctuous than on some of the others – runner up
5. Gastronomy Domine - the winner!
• Salted, blow-dried, salted, anointed with hot fat
Tap: 8/10
Visual appeal: 9/10
Crunch: 8/10
Taste: 9/10
• A deliciously crunchy top layer, coupled with the yielding soft fat beneath, made this a clear winner
6. Grilled
Salted, grilled after roasting
Tap: 9/10
Visual appeal: 6/10
Crunch: 10/10
Taste: 6/10
• Although blessed with a crunch so loud that it could be heard from the next room, this was disappointingly dry, and reminded us more of a cheap pork scratching than a respectable piece of crackling
7. Microwaved
• Salted, microwaved after roasting
Tap: 8/10
Visual appeal: 7/10
Crunch: 9/10
Taste: 6.5/10
• Hard on top, with the texture of a porky Aero, this was acceptable, but not great. Microwaving is probably better than grilling if you need to rescue a failed batch of crackling, but only just.
Listlessly picking at the remaining crackling like true lard addicts, we discuss how odd it is that, with the exception of the chewy Leiths stuff, the different methods all produced such fine results (the marks above represent determined bristle-splitting on our part).
In future, I would continue to pre-salt (Delia's version lacked flavour) and would also be inclined to adopt the hair-dryer idea, if only to boast about it at the table. However, I'd probably steer clear of adding any extra fat on – admittedly extremely spurious – health grounds. (Having enjoyed the mysteriously crumbly Good Housekeeping crackling, the Expert is tempted to try using oil.) Great crackling depends on two things: a bone-dry rind (which I suspect the Leiths slice lacked, as it received no special attention in that direction), and starting off in a blisteringly hot oven. Everything else is a matter of personal taste.
What are your top tips for crisp crackling? Do you use oil or, like Delia, steer clear? Does cooking it separately from the meat help, or is that cheating? And can anyone suggest a good recipe for three and a half slices of cold roast pork belly?
The simple pleasures are the best at the 