For me, as a Californian, I think of cracklings as fried skin, which is a different process in its self. Recky, you're right, the term 'crackling' can be taken different ways. Or are you all that busy all the time that you just slice and plate and never hold? Perhaps a heat lamp? Although I can't imagine this working for an extended period of time. Great for sauces, mash, stews etc., but most cuts of meat will suffer. I might add that I don't have a convection oven in my kitchen, so for holding anything at the right temperature I have to resort to my steam table. On the same note I'm still wondering (as in a former thread months ago) how some of you guys keep tender roasts ready for service over a typical period of, say, 2 1/2 hours or so, without overcooking the inside and losing the pink centre, for example in a prime rib roast. The salamander, for instance, crisps the skin up again, but it becomes very chewy. While the meat comes out extremely nice and succulent, we can't seem to get the crackling right. We have reheated in sauce and blasted in the salamander, thrown it on the grill skin side down etc. My sous and I have been running a few experiments trying to reheat cubes of pork belly for (mock) service and retaining or recreating perfect crackling.
