Fun with Pork Belly - in multiple parts

Here is a 17 1/2lb. pork belly...

I picked up this, bone-in beauty at Cannuli's House of Pork, in the middle of Philadelphia's Italian market on 9th street. I wanted to get some practice trimming one of these babies from scratch. I had some ideas of what I wanted to make, bacon, of course, but I didn't what to limit it to that. I was hoping to be a bit more creative.

I started by cutting a nice, 4 bone, piece of meat out of the belly. Following the outside bone as a guide I came out with a impressive roast of pork belly. Frenching the bones gave a nice effect.

I then removed the rib bones from the remaining 2 pieces, following the underside of the bones leaving as much meat as possible on the belly. It was a slow process but easier than I thought. Squared up the 2 hunks of belly and they were ready to become bacon or what ever I had in mind.

I saved all scraps and small pieces from the trimming for later use. There is just too much flavor in this cut of pork to discard them. Maybe I'll use it for making some sausage , I do have some nice venison on the freezer...

Now that the belly is all trimmed, it's time to get to work!

Next up... BACON.

Cheers.