I have a slab of pork belly sitting in the freezer for some time now which I initially bought to make roast pork (siew yoke). I was cracking my head on what to do with it when I recalled seeing a picture of a succulent piece of pork belly on WendyinKK’s blog.
I did a quick search on “pork belly” and found her ‘Dong Po Pork’. Checked my fridge and kitchen and I have all in ingredients needed to make the braised pork belly. As I was chauffeuring my girls to their enrichment classes in the morning, it would mean that I could only get this dish ready for dinner.
So I spent a good part of the mid-morning and afternoon making this dish, and boy, was it worth the time and effort to make this. The two thumbs-up and gleeful faces I got from my hubs and elder gal were priceless.
The flavour and taste of this pork belly is just superb, The meat and skin just melt in the mouth and the gravy – it’s especially yummy to drizzle it onto a plate of hot steam rice. Both my hubs and girl loved it so much that they had a second helping of rice tonight. So looks like this is something I have to make again soon.
Dong Po Rou
Dong Po Rou (Pork) 东坡肉 (adapted from WendyinKK)
Ingredients:
1kg pork belly, skin on
100gm spring onions
50 gm ginger
500gm Shao Xing Wine
100gm light soy sauce
20gm dark soy sauce
80gm rock sugar (or in Wendy’s recipe: brown candy sugar)Method:
1. Boil a pot of water and scald the pork belly for approx 5 minutes. Drain and set it aside.
2. Cut the spring onions lengthwise (into halves) to fit the base of pot. Slice ginger and placed on top of the spring onions.
3. Placed the boiled pork belly onto the spring onions/ ginger with its skin side down.
4. Measure out the light and dark soy sauces and then pour into the pot. Add the sugar and lastly the rice wine. Add some water if the liquid level is too low.
5. Add some water to ensure that there is liquid covering most part of the pork.
6. Boil the pork on high heat for about 15-20mins, and then reduced it to low heat and simmer for about 2 hours. (I flipped the pork over on its halfway mark). Note: to test for tenderness, see if it can be poked through with a chopstick.
6. Remove pork belly from pot and put into a steaming dish, skin side up.
7. Steam the pork belly on high heat for at least 30 minutes. (According to WendyinKK, this is a crucial step, so do not skip this step)
8. Pour gravy (in pot) over the pork when it has finished steaming.
A great dish to serve with a bowl of warm steam rice. Try it, you won’t regret it.
Note: I used a shallow claypot for braising the pork.
Putting it into the claypot for braising
The sliced up pork
Note to self: I found out a friend also made the same dish recently and when I read her blog, I noticed that she added star anise and cinnamon when braising the pork. I think I’ll try that next time and see if it’ll enhance the flavour of the pork and the gravy further. Will keep you posted!
Cooking In Spore 