Chinese cuisine has many, many braised pork dishes. It is almost impossible to list them all out, but one of the widely loved is “Braised Pork with Soy Sauce”. The rich brown color sauce sometimes is just enough to finish up a bowl of steamed rice.

Each Chinese family has their own version of this dish. Ours are very simple to cook. I still laughed at myself how my craving for this made me googling for hours looking for the recipe because I couldn’t get my mother on the phone.

It is best cook with a claypot. It distributes heat evenly and slowly. Pork belly is marinated for a couple of hours before cooking. The garlic cloves are not peeled, but rather just pounded lightly to bruise. The skin will keep the garlic whole, that way the garlic slowly infused the dish, rather than giving out the whole garlicky flavor to it.

The second step of the cooking is braising. The slowly simmering lets it cook naturally, the meat really takes in the flavor of all ingredients. Hard-boiled eggs are added last. Constant stirring is the key, if the liquid evaporates too quickly, add more hot water.

Naturally pork belly has more fat than other part, so leaner part of the pork can be used as substitute. Using all lean meat will sometimes result in tougher dish. Use the pork belly sparingly, if you will. But the beauty of braised pork dishes is in the use of fat.

Braised Pork with Soy Sauce

Make 4 servings

Ingredients:

500 g pork belly
1 garlic bulb
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp dark soy sauce
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 cups hot water
3 eggs, hard boiled

Directions:

To prepare garlic, remove cloves from the bulb. Pound on the cloves without peeling off the skin. Bruise them lightly to release the juice
Combine all ingredients (except water) in a medium-size claypot or ceramic pot. Marinade for 2 hours
Cook over low heat for 20 minutes or till the juice from the meat slightly dried out
Add water and lower heat. Add boiled eggs. Amount of water added should completely cover the meat and eggs at during the final addition of water
Simmer for 90 minutes

Notes:
Final adjustment of taste should be done on the first 20 minutes, if more soy sauce or dark soy sauce are needed

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