Braised Pork Belly (Hong Sao Ruo)
Introduction
I don't know why but my favorite type of meat is pork belly and my favorite dish to make with it is Hong Sao Rou. It's very convenient for me to make and fairly simple in my opinion. Its not exactly the healthiest thing to eat all the time but its just my comfort food and a very popular dish among Chinese and Taiwanese culture.
Instructions
- Start off with the usual, prepping your ingredients: cut the pork belly into cubes, slice the ginger, garlic, and green onions. That's all the knife work you need for this recipe, simple right?
- Next add the oil to a wok with the garlic, green onions, and 3 tablespoons of brown sugar if you are cooking 1 pound of pork belly. When it's heated, toss in the cubed pork belly and stir until its evenly coated with the sugar oil and browned.
- Add in 1 tablespoon on rice wine and 1 table spoon of dark soy sauce and cook for a few minutes so the pork belly gets coated.
- Okay this is the simple part where I just let the dish cook by itself and go run off for about 30 minutes to do something. Put in about 2-3 cups of water and the tricky part here is adjust the salt level to your taste. Generally I add in about 2-3 tablespoons of soy sauce but you might find that a little too salty. So what I would recommend is for you to put in 1 tablespoon first along with the ginger, star anise, 1 teaspoon of the Chinese 5 spice, and eggs if you like eating boiled tea eggs because if comes out tasting like it. So let this mixture simmer for about 30 minutes from medium to low heat after stirring it for a good minute.
- Now you taste test it, try the sauce out and adjust water and soy sauce levels to your own taste. Once you've got it, you can add some cornstarch if you like a thicker sauce but I like it more watery like soup.
- Serve it! Put it in a bowl with some of the sauce and garnish with more green onions and serve it with rice. Hope you enjoy it!
My Meal
I ate my braised pork belly with some Bok Choy fried with some Chinese Sausage, hot and sour soup, kimchi, and Taiwanese Apple Cider.
Click here for the recipe on how to make Fried Boy Choy with Chinese Sausage!
Click here for the recipe on how to make Fried Boy Choy with Chinese Sausage!