Stew Pork Belly with Potatoes
This is my favorite pork dish. If you haven’t tried this before you die, then you have not ate pigs correctly. I’m not saying American Bacon and Ribs are not good, it’s just, this is superior. Don’t get too testy, read the recipe
Ingredients
Pork Belly
Potatoes (Long ones)
Soy Sauce
Dark Soy Sauce (老抽)
Chinese Cooking Wine (料酒)
Sriracha
Rice Vinegar (米醋)
Black Pepper
Sugar
Cooking Ware
Round-bottomed Frying pan
Spatula
Recipe
Pork belly is very hard to cut, so it is best that you freeze it overnight, and cut it right when it is still “frozen”. When you take it out of the freezer, let stand for 10 minutes before you cut, and cut the meat side, not the skin side. Boy, you cannot cut through the skin side unless you have a machete.
Cut the pork belly into squares. Honestly the size doesn’t matter, but squares look more appealing.
Place the pork into your round-bottomed frying pan, and fill the pan with water. The water should be over the meat. Now, set it up on maximum heat, and wait till the water boils.
When the water boils, kill the heat. You will see there are disgusting stuff floating on the surface. Get rid of that. This is the point of boiling it, to get rid of the disgusting stuff.
Grab your pork belly one-by-one to a dry plate, and make sure there’s no visible water. You will need to stir fry it in oil, and if there is water you will get splashed with oil.
Clean your pan. You need to rid your pan of the disgusting thing. After that, dry your pan thoroughly and drizzle 1/4 cup of oil into the pan. At maximum heat.
After the oil heated up, put the pork belly into the pan and immediately start to stir fry. If you don’t immediately stir fry, it will stick to the pan and will make your life very difficult. Optionally, you can drizzle black pepper while on the initial stir frying.
After stir frying for 30 seconds, drizzle 1/4 cup of Chinese Cooking Wine into the pan, stir fry.
After the Chinese Cooking Wine, immediately drizzle 1/4 cup of Dark Soy Sauce, and Soy Sauce. Stir fry for 30 seconds.
After stir frying, pour one can of beer into the pan. If the beer doesn’t reach half the height of the pork belly, pour another one.
Drizzle 1/4 cup of Rice Vinegar, 1/4 cup of Sugar, and amount of Sriracha that you think your tongue can take.
Pour enough water that covers the entire pork belly. Note: must be over the meat and higher. Wait for the water to boil
Put a lid onto the pot, turn the heat down to Medium, and let it boil for 20 minutes.
While the pork belly is still cooking, clean up and peel your potato. One should suffice, but if you like potatoes, 2 or more is definitely an option. Chop the potatoes into pieces. Not too small, or it will be gone in the soup later. In this case, I got 24 pieces from one large potato.
When 20 minutes passed, open the lid and put the potatoes in the pot. Fill the pot with water that covers both pork belly and potatoes. Let it boil for 30 minutes. Still Medium heat.
Watch the pot. Everyone’s stove is different. The water might be gone before 30 minutes, so you need to watch, and add water if it boiled too fast.
When 30 minutes passed, open the lid, and turn the heat up to High. This step is called “收汁”. You let the water vaporize so the “juice” goes into the potato and the pork belly. Note: not to completely dry the pot, leave a little bit of the soup.
Put everything into the plate, and it is ready to serve.
Voila!