Hong shao rou is very popular dish in China. This is also one of my favourite dish my mom used to cook for me. I used to love eating pieces of pork belly with boiled eggs. It was definitely one of the dishes that will make me eat a whole bowl of rice along with veggies. Once I moved out, I missed some of the home cooked meals that my mom made so this is one of the dishes I wanted to learn to make.
There are many variations of this dish and each household have a different way of cooking it. The base of the braised sauce is soy sauce, sugar and dark soy sauce. The sauce should be slightly sweet, perfect to drizzle over rice. When I first made this dish on my own, I actually forgot to ask my mom! I found recipe online, which was good but it wasn’t what my mom made. Later I asked her and she gave me her recipe. The recipe I use now is what my mom taught me with a bit of variation to it.
For this recipe, I find it’s important parboil the meat before cooking. Without parboiling, the dish may have a really strong pork smell which can be off putting. There are some recipes I found just stir fry the pork and then add all the spices to braise it. With that method, the pork belly was slightly hard and had bit of an off taste. Instead I boiled the pork belly for a few minutes, drain it and stir fry after. This way the meat is tender and have less of an off taste. Here are some pro-tips to help make this dish taste delicious.
Pro Tips for cooking pork belly
- Cut your pork into small bite size pieces. I find it’s easier for me to eat and you don’t get greased out.
- Pre-boil your pork: helps to cook it faster and get rid of any off tasting flavour
- Stir fry your sugar: stir fry the sugar before putting in your pork
- Use only a tablespoon of oil or else you will have a lot of fat rendered out. Also once you get a bit of colour on the pork belly, you can scoop out some of the oil if there is a lot.
- Use dark soy sauce: the dark soy sauce is help to give the dish a nice deep brown colour. Don’t add a lot of it.
- Cinnamon and star anise: these are classic ingredients I put into my braised dishes, these are also part of the 5 spice mix you might buy in stores for cooking a lot of Chinese inspired dishes.
- Dry chilli pepper: brighten up the dish and makes it not as rich
- If there is a lot of oil left on top of braising liquid, skim off the oil from the top of the braising liquid and refrigerate it before disposing of it.
- If you want a thicker sauce, take out all the pork belly, and simmer the braising liquid for another 5 min with 1 tsp of cornstarch with 4 tbsp of water. Pour on top of the pork belly.
Braised Pork Belly (hong shao rou）
Ingredients
- 1 lbs pork belly cut into bite size pieces
- 1/2 cup soy sauce
- 1 ½ tbsp dark soy sauce
- 1/2 tbsp oil
- 1/4 cup rock sugar or granulated sugar
- pinch of salt
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/2 cinnamon stick
- 3 star anise
- 6 dry chilli pepper
- 2 soft boiled egg (optional)
- 3 cloves
Instructions
- Prep all your spices and sauces
- Cut the pork belly into bite size pieces.
- Put them into a pot with 3 cups of water and boil
- Once the water boils, let it boil for 5-10 min
- Strain the pork belly and wash
- Heat a wok up with some oil on low heat, put in the pork belly
- Stir fry until there is a bit of colour on the pork belly. You can scoop out some of the excess oil if there is a lot of oil rendered out.
- Remove the pork belly
- Dissolve the sugar into the oil
- Take the wok off the heat for 1-2 min, then put in the pork belly and stir. Can use a lid or oil splatter guard to help prevent oil splattering
- Once the sugar is coated on the pork belly, pour in soy sauce, dark soy sauce, spices, water and pinch of salt.
- Let it come to a boil for about 5 min and transfer the mixture into a clay pot or a heavy bottom pot
- Add in your soft boiled egg, salt and let it simmer for 35-40 min on medium low heat
- Once you can easily poke a knife or fork through the pork belly, it's all done.
- There might be more oil rendered from pork belly. Skim it off before serving. Serve with rice and stir fried or steamed veggies.