Stewed 5-layer Pork Belly
1.
First, let's review the material.
2.
Cut the pork belly into small pieces about 2 cm x 2 cm. By the way, let's appreciate the real five-layered meat in Toronto. (Skin-fat-thin-fat-thin)
3.
Pour a pot of water into the pot, add a slice of ginger and turn on the fire. When the water temperature reaches about 50 degrees, you can put in the sliced pork belly, cook for 10 minutes and remove. If the water boils during this time, it can be changed to medium heat.
4.
Pour a small bowl of water into the wok, and pour in all the crushed rock sugar.
5.
After the rock sugar has completely melted, change to medium heat, and then use a spatula to keep pushing it to prevent the sugar water from drying out in a certain part.
6.
When the rock sugar water has a brownish caramel color and the bubbles start to grow larger, you can pour in the pork belly and stir fry. In this process, the firepower needs to be adjusted to a small fire, which is easier to control.
7.
Stir-fry until the rock sugar water is collected and evenly wrapped on each piece of meat, then turn off the heat.
8.
On the other side, pour some oil into a small pot (boiler is better), fry the remaining 2 slices of ginger until golden, add dried chili and star anise to stir fry to make it tasteful.
9.
Pour in the colored pork belly, half a glass of red wine, appropriate amount of soy sauce (don't put soy sauce), pre-cut dried tofu and boiled peeled quail eggs.
10.
Then we pour boiling water, just a little bit less meat. After the high heat is boiled, change to low heat and simmer for 30 minutes, then turn off the heat and simmer for 20 minutes while keeping the lid on.
11.
After simmering for 20 minutes, we can boil it for 5-10 minutes according to the softness and hardness of our personal preference. For those who need thick sauce, please take out the pork belly and burn off the water in the soup on a high fire. (Remember to watch the fire!)
Tips:
1. Pork belly, it is best to use beautiful five-layered meat, the meat produced by this is very layered.
2. Red wine plays an important role in this dish. First, the fruit acid can soften the pork and shorten the cooking time. Second, the natural color of red wine gives the braised pork a tender color, which is why I don’t recommend it. The reason for the old smoking. (Maybe at first you may feel that the color is not dark enough, but as the water evaporates during the cooking process, the color of the red wine will be concentrated and beautifully attached to the pork belly)
3. For any stewed dishes, you must understand the method of [intermittent heating] in order to make the meat in the ingredients soft and sticky. That is, after simmering for 30 minutes, let it simmer for 30 minutes, and then determine whether to perform the next round of heating and simmering according to the softness of the meat. This time, we only need 1 round of pork belly. If we are dealing with beef brisket (especially crushed pork belly, which will be introduced in future recipes), we need to perform two or three rounds of braising. Another advantage of this method is energy saving-use the residual temperature in the food for the second stage of cooking.
