Home-Cooked: Pork Belly Burger with Mozzarella Cheese Stuffing

Lately, I've been feeling slightly more adventurous & my mind kept ticking with strange ideas on what to cook. Mind you, I'm not that hard-working as to look up on recipes & refer to one when I think of something that I would want to try out. 'It's all in the mind'! I'll consider how I would want the food to taste like, what sort of ingredients would give me that desired taste, texture & colors, & somehow I'll just experiment it in the kitchen. Crazy indeed.

Two weeks ago (yes, I haven't been blogging earlier), I accidentally discovered that the freezer unit's power supply was switched off. My first reaction was, "Oh my goodness...! How long has it been switched off??!" Quickly, I checked the condition of all the products in the freezer & thank goodness nothing turned bad yet (all the ice melted, but the freezer was still cool). The freezer must have been switched off for at least a day or maximum 2 days!

Since some packets of meat were thawed, I decided to just try out something with the whole slab of pork belly. Without a food processor & a proper oven, I didn't dare dream to cook up some crispy pork belly (siew yoke) nor barbecue pork belly (char siew). I didn't think of braised pork belly as well or some 'bah kut teh', but what came to my mind was pork burger! :D

As I don't usually follow recipes, whatever I can find in the house, that's what I'll use. It's all up to my imagination! Here's to share with you what possibly went into the 'awesome-tasting pork burger' (as what my husband & our friend, C2 commented) with estimated measurements only :D

* recipe makes approximately 3 burgers

Equipment:

1. bowl to mix the pork patty

2. spoon for mixing

3. non-stick frying pan/wok

4. spatula/"wok chan"

Ingredients:
1. minced pork (I had pork belly, which I minced 'manually' with a chopper knife), approx 450g
2. fresh rosemary, 2 sprigs (or it'll probably come up to 1 soup spoon full)
3. minced garlic, 1 tbsp
4. Menudo spice mix, 2 tbsp
5. garlic powder mix, 1 tsp
6. salt, 1 tsp
7. pepper, 1 1/2 tsp
8. L & P sauce, 1 tsp
9. BBQ sauce, 1 tbsp
10. corn flour, 2-3 tbsp
11. shredded mozzarella cheese, approx 6 tbsp
12. butter, enough for frying the pork patties
13. burger buns

Directions (burger buns):
1. Cut the burger buns into half, horizontally (logically...hahaha...)
2. Spread butter on both sides of the buns - it'll be more fragrant.
3. Heat pan/oven toaster.
4. Place buttered-side of buns (facing downwards) on the heated pan or toast the buns for 1 minute on high temperature.
5. Once the buttered side is slightly brown, remove the buns from the pan/oven toaster & set aside.

Directions (pork patties)
1. Mix ingredients #1 to #10 together in a bowl.
2. Cover the bowl with cling wrap.
3. Chill for approximately 1 hour.
4. After an hour, remove bowl of meat from chiller/fridge & split the minced pork mix to 3 portions of approximately 150g per patty.
5. Form each into a 'ball'.
6. Take a patty at a time, flatten it a little, fill the middle with 2 tablespoons of shredded mozzarella cheese, & wrap the cheese with the minced meat, rolling it back into a 'ball'.
7. Flatten the 'ball' of minced meat a little 'til it's approximately 1 inch thick (or less, depending on how large your burger bun is) using your fingers/thumb.
8. Heat pan/wok at medium heat.
9. Add some butter onto the heated pan.
10. Place patties on the buttered pan. Leave the patties untouched (do not keep flipping) for at least 4-5 minutes or 'til you notice the bottom starts 'browning'. Best to close the frying pan/wok with a lid to allow the patties to cook on 'both sides'.
11. Flip the burger patties & allow the patties to cook for another 5 minutes or so. After flipping, cover the pan/wok again.
12. Remove the patties from the pan & place it on top of the slightly toasted burger buns.

* You can put whatever sauces you want on your burger. We had more cheese, some bacon bits, fresh tomatoes & BBQ sauce...hahaha...We had some caramelized onions on our burger as well :)

I also had some home-made wedges added to the meal that went with some wasabi mayo :P The home-made wedges are really simple to cook. All you need to do is:

How to cook your own potato wedges:

1. Wash the potatoes.

2. Boil the potatoes in a pot of water 'til you can poke a chopstick through the potato (it's soft enough, yet not too soft since you're not making mashed potatoes).

3. Drain the cooked potatoes.

4. Cut the potatoes into wedges.

5. Season with some rosemary, salt & pepper.

6. Leave the potatoes to 'dry' before you toss it into the pan to be fried. (you may want to do this earlier in the day?)

7. Right before frying, lightly coat the potatoes with some corn flour (so that the potatoes are dry) - this is optional

8. Heat the frying pan/wok. If you've an air-fryer, you can use that too.

9. Add 1-2 tbsp of cooking oil & have the oil heated for a minute or so (if you just want to pan-fry them instead of deep-frying the potato wedges).

10. Add the wedges into the heated pan. Fry 'til the wedges are nicely golden brown.

11. Remove the golden brown wedges from the pan.

12. Serve hot & enjoy it as it is or with your favorite dip/sauce.

It was one crazy evening & a totally enjoyable meal. We were extremely satisfied. I could say that this experiment succeeded! *yay!*

Try it out. There are loads of recipes online that you can follow as well, so you can refer to those for 'safer' attempts as my recipe are all by approximates...hahaha. In the Malay language, we call it the "agak-agak" (estimated) or "lebih kurang" (more or less) method. That's how I've been cooking all this while *lol*

Hope you'll enjoy this post! Stay tuned for more home-cooked dishes & recipes. I'll be sharing on my lamb stew, home-made chicken 'sausages' + chicken nuggets, & also an attempt on the 'claypot pork belly with salted fish' dish in the next 3 posts!

The experimental chef-at-home,