I want to start my introduction to this dish by making some confession: I love bacon, religiously. Many times when all hope was lost, or when I was in the lowest valley in my life, I fry one bacon, I eat that bacon, and then bacon gives me strength. The world cannot be too bad, because I still got my bacon. Red bull gives you wings, but bacon, however, gives you strength to endure hardship in life, sort of. Bacon is good, but do you know what is “gooder”? A lot of bacon!
Bacon is basically cured pork belly slices. Today we are going to make a dish with one piece of pork belly. We are going to make Pork Belly with Garlic Sauce. Let me remind you that bacon is made of pork belly slices.
We, however, are going to have the whole pork belly!
Ingredient
1 pc of pork belly (approx. 2 lb)
1 inch of sliced ginger
¼ cup of Chinese pepper (optional)
3 star anise (optional)
Sauce 1
¼ cup of minced garlic
3 Tbsp of soy sauce paste
2 Tbsp of water
Sauce 2
3 Tbsp of soy sauce
1 Tbsp of chili oil
2 Tbsp of minced garlic
This is the optional step, the whole purpose is to remove more pork smell than the traditional blanching method. I had not found the English translation of this process, the literal meaning of this process is called “living water run”. The principle behinds this is to take advantage of the permeability of raw meat. The process blanching is plunging food substance into boiling water and then removing it after a short time. This will remove much blood and lymph from the meat. However, since the cooked meat is not as permeable, some blood and lymph fluid will be trapped inside the cooked meat barrier before they can escape to water. By doing “living water run”, the water temperature is slowing rising and it allows sufficient time for blood and lymph fluid to escape before the outside of the pork is cooked. The step is simple: Prepare a pot of cold water, place your pork meat in it, heat up the pot with the smallest heat, stop when the outside of the meat just turn color, remove the meat for next cooking step.
Prepare a boiling pot of water, add ginger, Chinese pepper and star anise to infuse the flavor into water. Since it could be hard to find Chinese pepper and star anise, I leave it optional. Ginger alone is good enough but it can be better if you happen to have those spices on hand. This is to cover up the pork smell and add flavor to it. You have to boil your pork belly at low heat for approximately one hour. Check the doneness level by puncturing the meat with a chopstick. If you can puncture it, it’s ready.
Remove the pork belly from the pot, and let it cool down for 15 min. There are two reasons behind it. First, it’s going to be too hot to handle, Second, it’s easier to fall apart while it’s hot since the pork belly is softer when it’s hot. Let it cool down for 30 min or until it’s easier to handle, carefully slice it into ⅛” thickness slices.
The flavor of this dish mainly depends on your sauce. There are zillions ways of mixing your sauce. These are two kinds of sauce that are considered my favorite. Try both out and see which one you like!
Enjoy!
- 1 pc of pork belly (approx. 2 lb)
- 1 inch of sliced ginger
- ¼ cup of Chinese pepper (optional)
- 3 star anise (optional)
- Sauce 1
- ¼ cup of minced garlic
- 3 Tbsp of soy sauce paste
- 2 Tbsp of water
- Sauce 2
- 3 Tbsp of soy sauce
- 1 Tbsp of chili oil
- 2 Tbsp of minced garlic
- Prepare a pot of cold water, put the pork belly in it
- Bring the temperature to 120F at very low heat, remove the pork belly and discard the water
- If you do not want to do step 1 and step 2. Blanch your pork in boiling water for 1 min then shock it in iced water.
- Boil a pot of water, add ginger, Chinese pepper, star anise first to fuse the flavor to water
- Cook the pork belly at low heat for one hour.
- Poke the pork belly skin side with chopstick and check if you can puncture it
- Remove the pork belly from the pot and let it cool down in room temperature for 30 min
- Carefully slice it at ⅛” thickness
- Mix the sauces
- Drizzle on top of pork belly slices
- Ready to serve
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