DONGPO ROU - Diana Chin

For this evening’s dinner, hubby craved for “DONGPO ROU”. He recalled the best tasted Dongpo Rou was when we had a trip to Hangzhou a couple of years ago. Enjpyed the sights, show by Zhang Zimou and cuisine there. He also asked for JIU HU CHAR too. I made BUTTERMILK PAO, a squarish looking one.

INGREDIENTS:

• 600 to 700g of Pork Belly.
• 6 to 8 scallions, depends how big is your clay pot/stainless steel pot
• 2 inch ginger, slice
• 1/2 cup premium soy sauce ( low sodium)
• 1/2 cup Shaoxing wine
• 2 tbsp of caramelized sauce
• 40g rock sugar, or more according to taste.
• 2 star anise ( for that wonderful spice flavour)

STEPS:

1. Bring a pot of water to boil. Add pork belly and boil for 5 minutes. 
2. Discard water, rinse pork belly under running water. 
3. Pat dry and then cut meat into 2 1/2 inch squares and tie them with food strings to avoid the meat from falling apart from braising.
4. Lay the scallions on the pot, topped off with gingers and placed the boiled pork skin facing down. 
5.  Add light soya sauce, caramelized sauce, wine, star anise and adequate amount of water to cover the pork level to half. 
6. Boil at high heat for 30 minutes. 
7. Then turn the pork skin up and continue braising with low heat for 2 hours or until pork is tender ( QQ texture). 
8. Add seasoning, as per your taste ( sweet, salty or sweet salty)