Unleash Your Inner Julia Child With This Surprisingly Easy Crispy Pork Belly Recipe

Crispy, golden brown pork-belly croquettes served with sauce gribiche is a modern and far more accessible take on the French classic called tête de veau.

Daniel Gritzer

Published October 15, 2024

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Cutting into pork croquette — Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez

Why It Works

Once boiled, shredded, and shaped into croquettes, rich, gelatinous pork belly is a great stand in for the traditional calf's head used in the classic tête de veau.
Simmering the pork until it's fall-apart tender ensures it shreds easily for shaping the croquettes.

This is a recipe for tête de veau with sauce gribiche for those trying to make tête de veau with sauce gribiche in the United States. Which is to say, this is not a recipe for tête de veau with sauce gribiche, but instead one for pork belly croquettes with sauce gribiche. I can explain!

Tête de veau, literally "calf's head," is a classic dish of the French kitchen, featuring a rustic hunker of wobbly poached claves head, all fatty and meaty and deliciously gelatinous. Along with it is usually a bright and punchy sauce like ravigote, a kind of mustardy and herby emulsified vinaigrette, or sauce gribiche, a rich mayonnaise built on boiled eggs and flavored with mustard, herbs, and lots of minced capers and cornichons.

Side view of bite of pork croquettes — Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez

I wanted to write that recipe for our readers here, but I quickly realized just what a challenge it is to even find a calf's head in the States, not to mention how a person at home would come anywhere close to eating a calf head's worth of meat (or even half a calf's head!). But fortune favors the stymied, and as it turns out I was in Paris several months ago, eating my way around the city with an eye on bistro and brasserie classics that I could develop recipes for at home. At one restaurant—Grand Brasserie—I got an idea for a solution to the veal's head problem.

There, the chef served "tête de veau" by breading and frying a torpedo of shredded calf's head, sort of like a meaty croquette, with the sauce gribiche on the side. This was something I could make work for a home cook in the States.

Salting pork — Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez

My first step for adapting this to a US audience was to switch from veal to pork, since pork is easier to find and cheaper. My second step: Switch from head to pork belly. I didn't think a boiled slab of pork belly would make a great stand-in for the classic poached calf's head—the fat composition and amount of gelatinous parts are different—but I was pretty sure the meat, once boiled, shredded, and chilled, could work just as well in fried-croquette form.

So that's what I did. The process is easy to do, though it does take some time: The pork belly has to be simmered in an aromatic broth until fall-apart tender, which can take more than a few hours. Then you need to shred it, season it, and roll it in some sheets of plastic wrap into a log. The fat will melt and pool, but it's fine, there's more than enough even if a good amount seeps out.

Cutting pork croquettes — Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez

After that, you chill the log of rolled, shredded pork belly until firm, which also takes many hours. At this point, it's easy to finish and serve: Just slice the chilled pork roll into pucks, dredge them in a classic breading of flour, egg, and breadcrumbs (I prefer panko), and fry them in a shallow pot of oil until golden on both sides.

Plated on generous dollops of sauce gribiche, the result looks far more refined and complicated than the actual process is. It's not an actual plate of tête de veau, but I'm pretty sure no one will complain.

Overhead view of pork croquettes — Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez

Recipe Details

Unleash Your Inner Julia Child With This Surprisingly Easy Pork Belly Recipe

Cook 5 hrs 30 mins

Chilling Time: 12 hrs

Total 17 hrs 30 mins

Serves 4 to 8 servings

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Ingredients

3 pounds (1.36kg) meaty boneless pork belly, with or without skin
1 medium yellow onion, cut into large dice
1 medium carrot, cut into large dice
1 large celery rib, cut into large dice
4 sprigs thyme
3 medium cloves garlic
5 whole black peppercorns
2 bay leaves
1 tablespoon kosher salt, plus more as needed
1/2 cup all-purpose flour (2.25 ounces; 64g)
3 large eggs, beaten (about 2/3 cup)
2 cups panko breadcrumbs (5 ounces; 145g), roughly crushed by hand if very large
Vegetable or other neutral oil, for frying
One recipe Sauce Gribiche

Directions

In a large pot, combine pork belly with onion, carrot, celery, thyme, garlic, black peppercorns, and bay leaves. Add enough cold water to cover, add 1 tablespoon salt, and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Lower heat to maintain simmer and cook, topping up with extra boiling water if needed, until pork can easily be pierced with a fork, about 5 hours.
Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez
Transfer pork to a rimmed baking sheet and let cool slightly; discard poaching liquid and aromatics. Using your hands and/or forks, shred pork belly meat and fat well. Season to taste with salt and pepper, mixing to incorporate well.
Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez
Stretch a roughly 2-foot length of plastic wrap on a work surface and transfer shredded pork to it in a long mound (it's okay if some of the liquid fat stays behind; save it for another use, like frying potatoes). Wrap plastic around the mound lengthwise; wrap with a second long sheet of plastic, if necessary, to contain the mound of shredded pork and its juices well. Holding the ends of the plastic, spin the loose cylinder to tighten the ends and compress it into a tight cylinder. Set on a clean rimmed baking sheet and refrigerate until fully set, at least 12 hours.
Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez
Spread flour, egg, and panko breadcrumbs in 3 separate shallow bowls. Carefully remove plastic and slice pork roll into four roughly 1-inch thick discs (you can cut fewer discs or more, depending on your yield and how many servings you want to cook at once; refrigerate any remaining pork roll for later).
Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez
Working with 1 disc at a time and using separate hands for the wet and dry elements of the breading, dredge the pork discs first in flour, making sure to coat it completely before shaking off excess. Then dip in egg, turning to coat. Finally, press into the panko breadcrumbs, turning the disc and using your dry hand to press them all over until fully coated. Transfer to a platter or baking sheet and repeat with remaining discs.
Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez
In a large cast iron pan or stainless-steel saute pan, heat about 1/2 inch oil to 340°F (170°C), then carefully lower breaded pork discs into oil and fry, turning once, until golden brown on both sides, about 8 minutes total. Transfer to paper towels to drain and season lightly with salt. (If making more pork discs at once, fry in batches and keep the earlier batches warm in a low 200°F oven).
Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez
Spoon gribiche onto serving plate, spreading it in a generous circle. Set a fried pork disc on top of each plate and serve.
Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez

Notes

This recipe makes a sizeable enough chilled pork roll that you cut many servings from it; feel free to make as many servings as you need at a time, while reserving the remaining pork roll for later.

Make-Ahead and Storage

The pork roll can be kept wrapped and chilled in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.

Nutrition Facts (per serving)
676	Calories
47g	Fat
17g	Carbs
44g	Protein

Nutrition Facts
Servings: 4 to 8
Amount per serving
Calories	676
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 47g	60%
Saturated Fat 15g	73%
Cholesterol 185mg	62%
Sodium 668mg	29%
Total Carbohydrate 17g	6%
Dietary Fiber 2g	7%
Total Sugars 3g
Protein 44g
Vitamin C 3mg	13%
Calcium 132mg	10%
Iron 3mg	17%
Potassium 603mg	13%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.