Tim Chin is a professional cook and writer who has contributed to Serious Eats and America’s Test Kitchen. A graduate of The International Culinary Center, Tim has cooked at restaurants in New York and Boston, working at Rouge Tomate, Northern Spy, and BiSq.

Tim Chin

Chinatown barbecue shops with <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/classic-char-siu">char siu</a>, roast duck, and soy sauce chicken hanging in their front windows specialize in a variety of foods collectively called siu mei—a catchall term for meats often roasted over an open-fire. There are few foods as emblematic of siu mei than Cantonese roast pork belly, or siu yuk—fragrant, succulent meat hiding beneath a uniform layer of golden brown, super-crispy skin.This version is a calculated spin on the traditional process of roasting a side of cured, skin-on pig over an open fire, utilizing a few modern-day techniques. We cook the pork sous vide, ensuring a consistent, luscious texture throughout the meat. The low, slow process of sous vide also renders the otherwise tough skin soft and pliable, which makes pricking the skin—an essential step in creating siu yuk’s characteristic crispy, bubbly, crackled crust—light work. To guarantee the skin crisps and puffs, we air dry the cooked pork for three days, and then blast it in a hot oven (ideally, an air fryer).The result is a delight in textures and flavors: silky, salty, melt-in-your mouth meat and a deeply golden brown, crispy-crunchy skin.

Crispy Cantonese Roast Pork Belly (Siu Yuk)