The Happy Home Cook: Airfried Vegetarian Crispy Pork Belly

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Airfried Vegetarian Crispy Pork Belly with Brown Rice (Photo by Raymond Virata)

For those who want to cook healthier with an air fryer, there are finally air fryer cookbooks out. Before then, everyone was a Do-It-Yourself Youtube cook, you have to experiment with your favorite recipes to see if you can cook it with less oil. Less oil means you have to cook it at a higher temperature with convection cooking (via turbo broiler or airfryer).

Pinoys love crispy pork belly, whether it may be lechon kawali or bagnet. I’ve tried cooking it in an airfryer. The magic number is 450 degrees to crisp and brown. Lately, I tried a vegan lechon kawali at Nick’s Kitchen (it’s Daly City branch has closed) and wanted to see if I can make one at home. My friend Ava Tong uses an imitation bacon product from Taiwan (Yangkee Trading) which she bought at an Asian store for her Chinese roast belly. I decided to use this product for my airfried vegetarian crispy pork belly.

Ingredients

• Imitation Bacon/Pork Belly (Yangkee Trading) (half a block is more than enough for 1 person, cut into desired pieces, either 5 or 10) 

Yang See Trading’s Imitation Bacon/Pork Belly (Photo from Ava Tong)

• Canola oil (sesame oil can be used for flavor)

Crispy coating mix

• 1 Tbsp cornstarch

• 2 Tbsp flour

• 2 Tbsp Kikkoman Panko (or ground bread crumbs, Kikkoman Panko is just flour, sugar, yeast, salt.. so this whole dish can be considered vegan)

• 1 tsp pepper

• 1 tsp kosher salt (or regular salt if you don't have kosher salt).

Procedure

• Cut Imitation meat into desired number

• Coat Imitation meat pieces with oil

• Put all crispy coating ingredients together. Mix thoroughly.

• Coat the meat pieces with crispy coating mix.

Pre heat airfryer or turbo broiler to 450 degrees. Place pieces on the rack can cook for 25 minutes. It will already brown at 10 minutes and you can flip the pieces at this point. Cook further to crisp.

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