I found this recipe in a book titled “The Food of China” (by Den-Ta Hsuing & Nina Simmonds, Murdoch Books, in case you’re interested). Now, I’m a sucker for any good pork dish and this one is lovely – serve with with some good steamed rice, and a couple of lighter dishes.
Take 1 kilo of pork belly and scrape it to make sure it’s free of bristles. Blanch the pork in a pot of boiling water for 10 minutes, then drain well and dry thoroughly. (Paper towels are recommended here).
Heat a frying pan (the recipe says to use a wok but my wok isn’t big enough for a kilo of pork belly in one piece) and add 2 tablespoons of oil (I’d try peanut, actually, as it has a high smoking point). Heat the oil until very hot and then fry the pork belly in one piece until it has a good colour and the skin is crisp and brown. The skin has to be crisp or it will go chewy and horrible when you’ve finished braising it. Anyhow, when everything is brown and the skin is nice and crisp, drain the pork and set aside.
In a good-sized casserole dish (or clay pot, if you’re being very authentic) put in 6 spring onions all sliced, a thumb-sized piece of young ginger cut into fine pieces (the book just says 8 slices of ginger without saying what the original size of the ginger is and - frankly – with a sharp knife you can make 8 slices of any size), 100 grams of rock sugar, 50ml dark soy sauce, 50ml light soy sauce and 100ml Shaoxing rice wine. Bring to the boil, dissolve the sugar, add the pork, cover and simmer for between 2 and 3 hours until the pork is very tender.
Remove the pork, drain, and slice into the thinnest slices you can manage. You will need a very sharp knife as the pork should be pretty much falling apart at this point. My recommendation is to let the pork cool slightly. It will firm slightly and be a little easier to hold. Serve with the cooking juices on the side (strained) as the sauce.
Mmmmmm….
4 Comments
March 27, 2007 at 5:39 pm
[...] if it were a whole piece of pork belly, I’d rev up my most favourite pork recipe – Dong-Po Pork – but the long stewing only really works with a large whole piece. Strips would turn to mush. [...]
May 8, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Oh, man, does that sound good. I love braised pork belly, and this sounds like a most excellent version. Thanks for the recipe.
May 9, 2008 at 11:43 am
Heh. It IS good. I’ve got some pork belly in the freezer and will be making this again shortly. I’ll post up some photo’s to tempt you.
June 22, 2008 at 12:22 pm
[...] original recipe I used was very basic and used only a few ingredients. The new improved version is even more [...]