Source: Erchen Chang’s recipes for Taiwanese braised pork belly and daikon tots
Taiwanese Braised Pork Belly
Servings 4 people
Ingredients
Pork
- 500 g pork belly
- 100 ml rice wine
- 2 cm ginger bashed with the flat of a knife
- 1 clove garlic crushed
Braise
- 0.25 tbsp rapeseed oil
- 0.25 shallot diced
- 1 tbsp light soy sauce
- 1 red chilli dried
- 1 star anise
- 1.5 tsp Shaoxing rice wine
- 0.75 tsp mirin
- 1 clove garlic peeled and crushed
- 0.25 apple peeled, cored and diced
- 1 cm ginger bashed with the flat of a knife
- 0.25 spring onion cut in half lengthways
- 0.75 tsp rice vinegar
- 1 cinnamon stick small
- 0.25 tsp dark soy sauce
Instructions
- First, poach the pork. Put the pork belly in a deep pan filled with cold water, bring to a boil and cook for five minutes. Lift out the pork and discard the water.
- Put the pork skin side down in a clean pan, add enough cold water just to cover, then add the rice wine, ginger and garlic. Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat and poach for about 20 minutes, until the pork is firm, no longer pink and the skin looks translucent. Take off the heat and leave the pork to cool in its poaching liquid for at least four hours, and ideally overnight, covered and in the fridge.
- When you’re ready to braise, lift the pork out of the poaching liquor and cut it into cubes, skin and all. Strain the poaching liquor and reserve.
- Now to braise the pork. Put the oil in a casserole for which you have a lid (we use a traditional clay pot) on a medium heat. Add the diced shallot and cubed pork and fry gently, stirring often, for about 10 minutes, until the shallot softens. Pour in 125ml of the reserved poaching liquid and all the remaining braise ingredients except the dark soy sauce, and bring to a boil. Turn down the heat to a simmer, cover and braise for two hours, topping up with poaching liquid if needed
- Lift off the lid, stir in the dark soy sauce, turn up the heat to medium and cook for another 20 minutes, until the sauce reduces and turns glossy and slightly sticky.
- Serve on steamed rice – the fatty nature of the sauce coats the grains perfectly. The trick is not to render the fat too much, so the pork melts in the mouth, but still holds its form.
