Braised Pork Belly Recipe

By tulawdog

Ingredients

• 1 lb pork belly
• 1 tablespoon oil
• 3 stalks scallions, cut into 3-inch lengths
• 1-inch peeled ginger, cut into slices
• 2 1/4 cups water
• 1 cup light soy sauce
• 6 tablespoons dark soy sauce
• 3 1/2 tablespoons Shaoxing Wine
• 1 oz (or 40 g) rock sugar, lightly crushed or 2 1/2 tablespoons brown sugar

Preparation

Step 1

Bring a pot of water to boil. Add the pork belly and boil for 5 minutes. Discard water, remove pork from pot, rinse and pat dry. Cut the meat into 2 1/2-inch squares. Tie the pork pieces with food safety strings as tight as possible to avoid meat from falling apart while braising.

Heat up a clay pot or stainless steel pot with oil, stir-fry the ginger and scallions until aromatic. Pour in the water and continue boiling for 10 minutes.

Add light soy sauce, dark soy sauce and wine and boil on high heat. Mix in rock sugar, pork pieces, skin side down and cook for 5 minutes.

Lower the heat to medium-low, at a gentle simmering level, cover the pot and braise pork for 30 minutes. Turn pork skin side ‘up’, and continue braising for 1 1/2-2 hours, or until pork is tender enough to your liking.

Dish out and remove food safety string before serving pork with Dongpo sauce over steamed rice or buns and vegetables.

Cook’s Notes:

Food safety string is not required if you prefer to braise the whole slab of pork belly. Hence, skip the cutting part of the pork belly.
You can use regular Shaoxing Wine for the Dongpo Pork recipe. Shaoxing ‘Hua Tiao’ wine will add a more robust and richer flavor to the dish.