"e Road Home" Braised Pork
1.
Material selection:
To make braised pork, the choice of ingredients is a very important matter, and the raw materials directly determine the finished product. It is recommended to choose fresh pork belly with skin, fat and lean.
2.
Pork belly treatment:
Wash the pork belly, cut the pork skin down, and cut it into 1 inch thick slices or into chunks. Heat a flat-bottomed non-stick pan, spread large slices of pork belly in the pan, fry both sides over medium heat until it is slightly browned. In the process of frying, a lot of lard will be dissolved, and some excess fat will be removed by the way (self-comfort). After frying, take it out and set aside.
3.
Prepare a pot with a lid, break the shallots in the middle, and spread them flat on the bottom of the pot. Put ginger slices and star anise on top of green onions. Put the pork belly that has just been fried on top. Then you can prepare the "braised sauce".
4.
Braised sauce:
First, let's stir-fry the sugar color. If the braised pork leaves the sugar color, it feels like something is missing. It may be that I have been accustomed to having this caramel flavor in braised pork since I was a child. Moreover, the braised pork cooked with sugar is beautiful in color, with a natural red color, especially the color of the sugar fried with rock sugar, it is even more beautiful and shiny.
Heat up the wok and add about 1 tablespoon of cooking oil. Add the crushed rock sugar, turn the heat to low, and slowly fry the rock sugar granules. Continue to fry, turn off the heat when the rock candy starts to show an amber color. Pour water (be careful when pouring to avoid splashing sugar juice), add Huadiao wine and soy sauce. After boiling over high heat, pour it into a pot containing pork belly. Add an appropriate amount of water to make the water level just below the pork belly. Cover the lid and simmer for about 2 hours. Pick out the green onion, ginger, star anise, and add salt to adjust the saltiness. Just thicken the soup over high heat.
Tips:
The color of fried sugar should not be too dark, as long as the color of the sugar has the color of cooking wine. If the color is too dark, it will be bitter and affect the taste of the finished product. After the sugar color is fried, it is less likely to splash the sugar juice if it is poured into boiling water or hot water. Please be flexible about the time for braising pork belly. Usually, you will start to pay attention to the softness in about 1.5 hours.
