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Braised Pork Belly Rice Bowl

Updated: Dec 15, 2020

Your favourite Taiwanese comfort food; tender pork belly to comfort your growing belly.



So excited to share this recipe because I made it today and it was so so good! When I went to Taiwan last December, I was so excited to try 卤肉饭 (lu-rou-fan) Braised Pork Rice because I always see it on TV and the way every single person who eats it describes it as such a heavenly dish. Dark meaty goodness with thick gravy topped on a bowl of rice, it looks like a really homely comfort food. But sadly, the ones I ate in Taiwan wasn't very memorable and the meat given was very little. So I've decided to try it at home because my family was just talking about Braised pork rice that day.


Chinese cuisine isn't entirely my favourite and I can go for weeks without it. But there are some items I will wanna try or crave for; sweet sour pork is one of my favourite. Now, this braised pork rice is going to be the other. HAHAHAH.


I'm gearing towards more rice bowls and Asian cooking these days because my family seems to enjoy it a bit more than the angmoh food. They love their rice and I love that it is almost a one pot recipe. For this, I've used both pork belly and minced pork to have the best of both worlds since we couldn't decide on which; we have almost equal votes in the porkbelly team and the mincedpork team. Anyway, I'm glad I did mix both together because it provides a different texture and gives the gravy a heavier body. The thing about Chinese cooking is that it's so flexible, it's not as rigid as Western cooking; to me that is. And how we deal with the ingredients feel so rough and raw. Example to bring out the taste of the ginger, just smash the damn ginger slightly with the back of your knife for the ginger juice before you slice them.


And to be honest, I really dislike measuring stuff with spoons and cups because baking is also that rigid. But for the sake of jotting down recipes here, I've diligently measured them. But feel free to just roughly gauge the amounts as you tip the soy sauce bottle into the pot because that's what normal human cooking at home really is. And, remember to always taste your pot and season with salt and pepper to taste.

 

Serves 5

Preparation time: 30 mins

Cooking time: 1.5 hours


4 cups of cooked Japanese rice


Ingredients

1 medium red onion, diced

1 small ginger, divided into two (2/3 of it thickly sliced, the rest diced finely)

8 shiitake mushrooms, coarsely diced

600g of pork belly

250g minced pork

4 tbsp hua diao jiu (Chinese cooking wine)

7 tbsp dark soy sauce

7 tbsp light soy sauce

3 cups water

5 hardboiled eggs, peeled

White pepper to season

Salt to season


Spices

1 packet of "Meat Seasoning" spices (can be found in your Asian supermarket)

Thickly sliced ginger

If not, substitute with your homemade spice pouch:
6 cinnamon sticks
A handful of star anise
Some cardamon seeds
Some cloves

  1. Put all spices and the ginger in cheesecloth pouch or tea pouch.

  2. Bring a medium pot filled with water, to a boil.

  3. Cut pork belly into large pieces and blanched them for 2 minutes. Remove water and set aside.

  4. In another pot, heat oil and then add in honey. Let honey caramalise slightly before adding in the diced onion and ginger. Continue to fry till fragrant and slightly brown.

  5. Add in mushrooms to pot, and then add in pork belly and minced pork. Stir-fry them for a minute or so, until evenly mixed.

  6. Add in Chinese cooking wine, dark sauce, light soya sauce and the water, bring all to a boil.

  7. Then add in the spice pouch to the pot and then the eggs, lower the heat to a simmer.

  8. Cover the pot and simmer for about 1.5 hours. Check and stir occasionally to prevent the bottom from being burnt, add half cup of water if the water level gets too low. Simmer until the meat is tender

  9. Remove spice pouches from pot. Serve braised pork on top of Japanese rice.

 

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