Taiwan Braised Pork Rice 'Lu Rou Fan' (滷肉飯)

This is a street food that you can easily find in Taiwan street. This is one of my kids' favourite due to the sweetness of the gravy. The preparation of this dish is quite easy but the cooking time is a bit longer. It needs at least one and a half hour to braise until the meat it soft. In order to make sure that the fat does not collapse during cooking, I have used this practice: 15 min boiling and then, 15 min off fire. Repeat this steps until the meat is soft and tender. I do understand that this step is a bit tedious, but it is worth when you see a perfect dish is served.

Another secret of this dish is to have wine in this dish. The presence of rice wine will bring back all the fragrant of the spices. On top of that, with the rice wine being added during cooking, this will reduce the cooking time of the meat.

As for sugar, it is important to use rock sugar as this sugar will give a different sweetness as compare with normal granulate sugar. It may due to the different ingredient and processes to make these sugar.

Although this dish takes quite long to cook, but the effort is worthwhile especially when you see how much your family love this dish.

Happy Cooking!

Ingredients

400g pork belly

4 cm of cinnamon

5 pieces of cloves
2 pieces of star anise
4 cloves of garlic
4 shallots
Light soya sauce to taste
Dark soya sauce for the color (optional)
100ml Chinese rice wine
Rock sugar to taste
Water to cover the meat (around 250ml)

1. Mince the garlic and onion in small pieces.
2. Cut the pork belly into 1cmx1cm size.
3. Heat up the wok and stir fry the pork belly. Do not put in any oil. Let the oil or juice from the meat flow out. You may adjust the fire accordingly if the fire is too high.
4. When the outer layer of the meat is cooked, put in rock sugar and cook till the rock sugar melts and wrap the meat. This is important is the caramel will enhance the color and taste of the meat.
5. Add in minced garlic and onion. Stir fry for around 2 minutes.
6. Then, add in light soya sauce, dark soya sauce and 500ml of rice wine. Stir fry around 1 minute before adding in all the cloves, star anise and cinnamon.
7. Add in sufficient water to cover the meat and braise for 1.30 hour or until the meat is tender. Try not to add water in between unless the water dries up.
8. Once the meat is tender add in the entire wine and cook for 2 minute.
9. You may serve with hot rice.