The Only Way To Make A Roast Pork Sandwich Better Is To Add Some Smoked Pork Belly To The Mix
I'm sure I've said this before but I'm not a huge cheesesteak guy. I'm not saying they stink, but I'm just not eating enough cheesesteaks to really give a shit about the "where is the best cheesesteak in Philly" debate. (Sidenote: The answer is Angelo's Pizza, but that's besides the point). I'd say I've probably had like 6 cheesesteaks over the past 10 years of my life. Again, just not a huge cheesesteak guy.
But the sandwich in Philly that doesn't get enough credit? The sandwich in Philly that deserves the same amount of notoriety and praise and status as the cheesesteak? It's the roast pork sandwich. Which is typically going to consist of some roasted pork butt/shoulder, sauteed broccoli rabe, a few slices of provolone cheese, all tucked away on preferably a seeded roll. When all of that is combined together, it is perfection.
Just because something is perfect, however, doesn't mean you can't still make it better. So on today's episode, I decided to swap out a roasted pork butt for some smoked pork belly on my sandwich. Granted, I wasn't in Philly for this cook so I wasn't able to get my hands on a proper roll. But the smoked belly going along with that garlicky broccoli rabe all wrapped up in provolone? Oh hell yes. This is 100% a recipe that I'd eat every single gameday.
By the way--I mentioned in the video but I'll mention here as well. There are a ton of different ways you can do pork belly. You can smoke it the way I did in this video. You can cube it up and make some pork belly burnt ends. You can also keep the skin on, season with salt and make some crispy skin pork belly. I'll get around to all of those cooks soon. So I guess we can just count this as video 1 of the pork belly series.