Growing up, Sunday dinner would usually be at my grandmother's house. One of her specialties was braised pork belly, her dish was the perfect combination of melt in your mouth pork and fragrant Chinese spices including star anise and five spice. Although not quite as good as hers this recipe comes pretty close.
Ingredients:
- Pork belly 2lb slab
- 5 Shallots chopped
- 1 onion chopped
- 5 slices of ginger
- 5 tbsp rock sugar crushed
- 1 bunch green onion chopped
- 3 tbsp cilantro chopped
- 1/3 cup dark soy
- 1/3 cup light soy
- 1/4 cup Chinese cooking wine
- 2 cups chicken stock
- 5 star anise
- 1 tsp five spice powder
Method:
1. Bring a large pot of water to the boil and place the pork belly in to boil for 15 minutes. Remove and allow to cool. Once cool cut the belly in to 2 inch cubes
2. In a heavy bottom pot melt the rock sugar in 3 tbsp canola oil. Once the sugar starts to caramelize carefully place the cubes of pork belly skin side down and brown on all sides. (Note: ensure the pork cubes are nice and dry before frying otherwise you'll get flaming hot drops of caramel splattering on you!)
3. Once the pork is brown add the ginger, shallot and onion, and fry for 5 minutes. Add soy sauces, cooking wine, chicken stock, 5 spice powder and star anise. Braise with the lid on for 4 hours until the pork belly is tender.
4. Remove the pork belly to a plate. Strain the braising liquid and return to the pot. Skim off any fat and then thicken with a cornstarch slurry. Season with salt and add in the cilantro and green onions.
5. return the pork belly to the thicken sauce and cook for another 10 minutes to glaze the meat. Serve with rice or noodles.
Posts
Can I cook it in a slow-cooker?
ReplyDeleteHi there, although I haven't tried this recipe in a slow cooker I see no reason why it wouldn't be possible. The only suggestion I would make would be to lengthen the cooking time to make sure the pork belly ends up nice and tender.
ReplyDeleteI imagine the end product would be slightly different without first browning the pork belly cubes in the caramelized sugar but no less tasty!
Let us know how it turns out or if you have any other questions.
how do you get it so red?
ReplyDeleteThe final dish actually isn't as red as the picture looks, but is more of a dark caramel colour in real life. The colour comes from the dark soy in the braising liquid and the step where the meat is glazed with the sauce.
DeleteThis looks SOOOOOO Yummi!
ReplyDeleteCan you cook it the day before? And should one then shorten the cooking time say shorten the 4 hours to 3,5 hours?
Thanks!
DeleteYou can definitely cook it the day before, and in fact letting it sit over night should let the flavours even better. I would shorten the cooking time a bit as you suggested to 3.5 hours and then reheat it the day of for the remaining 30 minutes
Let us know how it turns out!