Taiwanese braised pork belly

I was feeling a little cheffy the other day, and thought I'd record my first attempt at cooking my mum's braised pork belly dish. This is a very traditional Taiwanese dish - and a simple recipe, but the results were mouthwatering (as a few friends and colleagues can now attest!)



Firstly, cut up and boil the pork belly.

Meanwhile, hard boil some eggs.

Then start assembling the ingredients in your rice cooker pot: pork belly, boiled eggs, chopped shallots*, garlic, rock sugar and soy sauce.

Put the rice cooker on and let it work its magic!

When the rice cooker ticks off, turn the pork belly gently to make sure it is completely coated with all of the marinade. You may need to put the rice cooker on two or three more times, depending on your taste.

*I found out later from Mum that I was supposed to put the shallots in at the very end to retain the fresh green colour.

And there you have it! Such a simple Taiwanese braised pork belly dish!

I hope you enjoyed my very first cooking post! :)

**Edit**

Here is the full recipe. The amount and ratio of ingredients really depends on your taste. I kind of made up the amounts because I never really measure when I'm cooking!

Braised pork belly

Ingredients
1.5 cups of soy sauce
300g of rock sugar
5 cloves of garlic
1 bunch spring onion/shallots
1kg pork belly
Eggs

Cut up the pork belly into large pieces. Put pieces into a pot of boiling water. Skim off any scum that appears.

Boil pork for about 15-20 minutes, or until pork is firm. Meanwhile, hard boil the eggs.

Drain pork pieces and reserve liquid to use as a base for another dish (soup or whatever). Drain and peel the hard boiled eggs.

Transfer the pork pieces and the peeled eggs to the rice cooker. Add soy sauce and rock sugar. Turn on rice cooker. Once the cycle is finished, gently turn pork belly pieces and eggs to marinade all parts. It will probably need another cycle (or two) on the rice cooker. Add the spring onion before the last cycle.

Serve with steamed rice and enjoy!