I have a 10 lb pork belly in my fridge that I'm trying to figure out what to do with.
A couple issues:
1. I brought it home, frozen on Sunday night; it's been sitting in the fridge since then. I'm getting worried about dealing with it before it goes bad.
2. It's maybe 85% fat. So, so disappointing, especially since I paid 7x more for the pork belly than what I paid for pork fat.
3. The skin is hairy.
I was going to make a roasted pork belly with crispy skin, but that's out since there's a giant chunk of fat between the skin and the meat.
So I'm thinking I'll trim it up, render the fat, maybe fry the skin. And then I have the meat.
Can I make bacon? Will I run into issues since it's been in my fridge for a few days already? The meat portion is probably less than 2 inches thick in most places.
Do I need nitrites to avoid botulism? These are my concerns with nitrites, in order of importance:
1. I don't know if my local grocer sells nitrites, and with it already thawed, I'm afraid I don't have time to order online
2. I'm worried about using too much/mismeasuring and poisoning myself by mistake
3. Not entirely sure about the health effects of nitrites (in regular amounts) - my least concern
Any ideas? Feeling a little overwhelmed here.