Grease splashes and burns your skin.

It worked.  I woke up this morning to an email from my cousin, titled "Shin Ramen Pork Belly".  He told me to make edits, but no need - Cousin Paul delivers in a way that only he could.  Without further ado... ladies and gentlemen, my cousin Paul (insert applause and cheer):

Grease splashes and gets on your clothing.  Grease that splashes and gets on your clothes makes you smell like a fatty.  The grease that I am referring to comes from a part of a magical animal that produces the most delicious grease of all...PORK BELLY!  When I think of pork belly, better known as ssamgyupsal to our Korean readers, I vividly think of fried up ssamgyups (preferably crispy) alongside slices of fried garlic or even fried kimchi, stuffed it into dduk bosam or even lettuce wraps all served with an iced cold shot of soju (as I write this entry, I'm drooling...just sayin).  But after reading David Chang's Momofuku book, I was inspired. Inspired to take the pork belly to the next level. 

I've come up with some recipes before that's not worth mentioning but something about what I imagined was going to be special.  This must be how KanYe feels when he lays down a track.  At any rate, David Chang started his career by opening up a ramen shop in NYC.  In his ramen shop, Noodle Bar, he incorporates a lot of pork.  So as my wife was reading me some pages out of his book in bed, that's when I came up with this brilliant idea.

A slab of pork belly, dry rubbed with Shin Ramen flavoring.  That's it.  Simple, but extremely flavorful.

All you need is a slab of pork belly (2 1/2 lbs) and some Shin Ramen (4 packs).  serves 6.

• Rub the ramen seasoning, including the other vegetable packet (crush all dehydrated vegetables) all over our porky friend.  If your pork slab has pork skin on it, its simple to remove if the pork is still cold and you have a sharp knife.

• Cover the marinated pork belly and let sit in the refrigerator for at least an hour.
• Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.
• Place the pork, fat side up and let it cook for 30 minutes.  Then flip it over and cook it for another 30 minutes.
• Once its golden brown and crispy on both sides, turn the heat down to 250 degrees and cook it for another hour.
• Remove the pork and let it sit in the refrigerator until its cold.
• Once its cold, slice the pork belly into 1/2 inch thick cuts.
• Warm up a cast iron skillet and fry up the cuts of pork belly on each side.

As our cuts of pork belly are getting a second treatment of frying, start boiling water in a large pot for the noodles.

For the sauce for the noodles you will need:

• a bunch of scallions
• a heaping table spoon of minced garlic
• a heaping table spoon of minced ginger
• a generous amount of soy sauce and sesame oil
• black pepper
• table spoon of sugar

Mix all this into a bowl and let it sit for a few minutes.

Since I had some onions and baby bok choy handy, i fried those up in a wok to put into my noodles.  You can put any type of veggies you like.

As soon as the noodles are done cooking, drain the liquid and throw the noodles into the veggies that you had cooked up.

Then throw in the ginger scallion sauce.

Toss together.  Place the crispy pork belly on top and there you have it.  Shin Ramen Pork.  I know, my buddy told me that I need a new name for this.

Thanks to Nary for sending me the Momofuku book, thanks to David Chang and his wild culinary imagination and thanks to the brave souls that tried my dish.  If it wasn't for all of you, this dish might have never been created.  Thanks to my wife for always being supportive in my weird culinary concoctions.  Hope you guys enjoyed this guest entry and I hope that you all try this dish out.  Feel free to send me feedback.  I've got thick skin.  Like pork skin.  

Love, peace and pork grease.