Braised Pork Belly

Pork belly cooked in caramelised sugar and soy until the sauce is thick enough to coat it.

Pork. Not vegetarian — contains pork.

Ingredients

• 800 g pork belly, skin on, in one piece
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 3 tablespoons caster sugar
• 3 tablespoons light soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
• 3 tablespoons Shaoxing wine
• 3 star anise
• a thumb of ginger, sliced
• 600 ml hot water

Method

1. Put the belly in a pan of cold water, bring it to the boil and let it bubble 5 minutes, then lift it out and rinse it. This takes out the scum that would otherwise cloud the sauce you are about to reduce.
2. Pat it dry and cut it into 4 cm cubes, each with a piece of skin attached.
3. Heat the oil in a heavy pan, add the sugar, and leave it alone until it melts and turns the colour of weak tea. This is the step the whole dish rests on: too pale and the sauce has no depth, a shade too dark and it turns bitter and cannot be rescued.
4. Tip the pork in at once and turn it in the caramel until every cube is coated and glossy. It will spit.
5. Add both soy sauces, the wine, the star anise and the ginger, then pour in the hot water until the pork is almost covered.
6. Bring it to a simmer, cover, and cook very gently for 75 minutes. A hard boil will tighten the meat rather than soften it.
7. Take the lid off and turn the heat up. Reduce the liquid until there is barely a centimetre left and it clings to a spoon, turning the pork every few minutes so it glazes evenly. That last 15 minutes is where the dish is made.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under China · All recipes