Do not read this if you hate deliciousness.
Do you like bacon? Do you like it a little on the softer side? If so, this is for you. This was always a comfort food while I was growing up, and it’s meant to be eaten in moderation. 2 or 3 pieces with a bowl of rice and some greens makes a perfect dinner. Pork belly offers a very interesting texture as well as flavor, melts in your mouth, makes you happy!
Mom’s Braised Pork Belly
Ingredients:
- 1 pound of pork belly, you can purchase this at Asian grocery stores or the butcher
- 2 tablespoons sugar or brown sugar
- 1 big stalk of leek (or 2 small stalks), washed and cut into 1 inch long pieces*
- 4 slices of ginger
- 3 tablespoons soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons cooking wine (sake, or white wine is fine too)
- 2 cups water
- 1 tablespoon Chinese 5 spice powder
- green onions for garnish
*my mom uses a few bunches of green onions, but I find leeks to be tastier.
Directions:
- When buying pork belly, make sure you get leaner pieces. Pork belly is fatty, really really fatty. Generally I would look for something that is 50/50 fat to meat ratio. Usually they will be ~3 inches thick. I cut it into 1×3 inches, or 2×3 inches, like so.
- This is the hardest part. Heat up your dutch oven, no need to add any oil. Brown the pork belly in batches. It WILL splatter, a lot. Wear an oven mitt to protect your hand. I got 2 small oil burns this time around, but damn it’s worth it. You can skip this step too but I find this step gives it a better texture.
- When you are done browning the pork belly, there will be quite a bit of fat at the bottom of the pan. Turn the heat to medium and add the sugar. Stir vigorously and don’t burn yourself, let the sugar get a little caramelized, it adds another layer of flavor. This process should only take about 20 seconds so be very quick here!
- Add the browned pork belly back into the pan and stir. Add the 2 cups of water right away. At this point, the water should reach a boiling point instantly. Add the rest of the ingredients. Stir. Reduce the heat to a simmer. Your pot should look like this, all nommy and stuff.
- Cover the pot and simmer for 2 hours. Then uncover and simmer for another hour. Be sure to stir every 30 minutes or so, especially that last hour. You might need to add a little extra water depending on how dry your climate is. It should look like this. At the end of 3 hours you should have about a cup of thickened sauce/fat mix at the bottom of the pan.
Serve over some white rice and spoon a little bit of sauce over the pork belly (minus the oil) and garnish with green onions.
I would eat the crap out of that!
I prefer my bacon crispy/crunchy a little, Evie…..make a recipe for me that is for crispy bacon eaters!
That does look damn good though!
Mike you will probably love the fried version of the pork belly, Mandarin Kitchen in Bloomington makes the best ever, next time you're in town lets hit it up.
Deal!
This looks amazing. It’s on my To Try List. Thank you!
Glad you like the recipe Amy! Let me know how it turns out.
I like my bacon crispy too rix. I love this recipe, cept I use shortribs since I’m not a huge fan of pork belly. Although those pieces you got eve look pretty lean.
yeah I got them at the Shanghai grocery store in Roseville (I think off of como), they weren’t even frozen like a lot of asian stores, great quality. $3/lb. I can’t believe you don’t like pork belly Travis :P You need to be fatter anyway, eat more pork belly.
[...] same thing for more than 2 days straight is just boring, you need to spice it up! This uses the braised pork belly I had earlier in the week. I’ll tell you the secret to making any* leftover dish into a [...]
looks really good!!! do you think that chinese white wine will work instead of sake or regular white wine?
yeah Chinese white wine would definitely work, I have used the chinese cooking wine in the square bottle.
Thank you! I’m going to make it tomorrow.
We really like what you write about here. We try and come back to it every day so keep up the good posts!