Well, that's not entirely true. Maybe there is a little bit of shame in me, which is why I decided to cook pork belly after I ran 2 miles. But, alas, I bet the calories I burnt during my 2-miler were only a teeny tiny fraction of the calories I got from the yummy but fatty pork belly. Oh well.
1. frozen! This is a 1 pounder
2. Boil it for 25 minutes (less time if your belly is defrosted :))
3. Spices and herbs you need: Ginger, garlic, Sichuan peppercorns, black peppercorns, star anise, half a cinnamon stick (didn't have it), and scallions (i didn't have any so I used onions instead)
4. Take your belly out of the boiling water and cut it into pieces. I'd say 1.5 inch squares would be good.
5. Put the spices and herbs on the bottom of a pot, and then put the belly into the pot, with the skin facing down. Make sure the pot is NOT too big. I ended up transferring everything from the pot below to a smaller pot.
(As you can see, the pot is too big...You don't want much liquid in it)
6. Now you need to add the following ingredients into the pot:
a). 0.5 - 1 cup of soy sauce (I like this Japanese brand the best). You could first put int 0.5 cup. Later if it is not salty enough, add more. For this dish, you don't need to use any table salt (? is that how you call it? Solid salt? LOL)
b). Shaoxing Cooking wine. If there are Chinese supermarkets, you can find this. There are different brands making the same type of cooking wine. It's pretty cheap. This bottle cost me $1.7. Use 1 cup.
c). Chinkiang vinegar: half a table spoon. This is really optional. You can choose to do without it. But I would recommend you not to use any other types of vinegar because the taste of this is quite different from vinegars found in American grocery stores.
d). Sugar: 1 - 2 table spoons. I used 1.
e). Sesame oil: 1 table spoon (not pictured :D)
f). Add some water to (barely) cover the belly.
g). I also added some celeries on a whim.
6. So you end up with this (below). Bring it to a boil, and then let it simmer for 2 hours (I know...it's long)
(This is a smaller pot than the one pictured above)
7. After 2 hours, you end up with this:
8. I am not done yet! I put the belly in a bowl, which was then placed in a large pot for steaming. and steamed the belly. Remember the put some soup into the bowl. (but not too much). Let it steam for 30 minutes. An alternative way to do it is to put it in the oven to bake for 30 minutes at 400F. If you decide to go through the baking route, also make sure to put the soup in the baking bowl or pan.
9. Ta da:
This is oily and can be salty, so you definitely need to have some white rice to go with it (jasmine rice is the best for this!). You can pour a couple of table spoons of the soup from the pot (from (6)) into the rice and mix it with the rice...YUUMMY.
Try it :)
