Chinese Red braised pork belly is considered as the "big dish" for family table and party. This dish is also named as Hong Shao Rou in Chinese. "Hong" indicates the lovely red color; "Shao" refers to the braising method. This post will introduce the basic steps of making perfect Hong Shao Rou at home.

Table of Contents

• About the "red braising"cooking method
• 💭About the versions
• 🐖 Ingredients
• Cook's Note
• Instructions
• How to reheat HongShaoRou
• 🧾Recipe

About the "red braising"cooking method

Red braised cooking, also known as hong shao, is a popular Chinese cooking method in which food either protein or vegetables is braised in a mixture of aromatics, soy sauce, sugar, and sometimes spices. Hong Shao dishes are usually savory and sweet in flavor. Among all of the long list of red braised dishes, red braised pork belly is the most famous one.

This cooking method usually involves long time simmering over slow fire so the seasonings have time to penetrate the ingredients. Following are some of the other red braised dishes.

1. red braised ribs
2. red braised chicken wings
3. red braised fish
4. red braised pig trotter

💭About the versions

There are several different versions of red braised pork belly

1. Chairman Mao's red braised pork belly, which is popular in center part of China use spice, commonly star anise and dried chili peppers to enhance the flavor and remove the odd taste from pork. So this version has a very light hint of hot.
2. Shanghai style red braised pork belly - this version uses very large amount of soy sauces and sugar. No spices used, only aromatics.
3. Homemade shortcut version - through everything together and let the sauce combine itself in the cooking process.

🐖 Ingredients

• Pork belly - Choose the well marbled pork belly
• Cooking wine - also known as Shaoxing wine, to help remove the raw taste from pig
• Sichuan peppercorn - highly recommend this ingredient in blanching process. No numbing feeling created, work a similar role of cooking wine. But completely optional.
• Rock sugar - recommend using yellow rock sugar since it creates a thick sauce texture and avoids overwhelming sweet flavor.
• aromatics (ginger, scallion and green onion) - can rich the flavor.
• black vinegar - adding a very small amount of black vinegar can help the flavors combines better without applying only sour taste on the pork cubes.
• light soy sauce - adding the umami flavor to this dish.

Since we cook the sugar at the beginning to get the amber color, this is no dark soy sauce used here. Dark soy sauce is mainly used for adding a color to the dish, but in most cases, it is dark red color.

Cook's Note

• The original lovely amber color of this recipe is coming from caramelized sugar other than dark soy sauce. We call this type of coloring as sugar coloring (糖色). Sugar color can be made either water or oil. Caramelized sugar not only brings color but also great unique flavors. Some of the easy home version may suggest skip making caramelized sugar because once burnt, it may bring bitter flavor. I prefer the caramelized version. Caramelized sugar generates hundreds of new and different compounds, with richer flavor and dark color. However, be careful with the process and turn off ore leave the heat once the sugar turns amber.
• Searing the skins at the very beginning can help to remove odd taste or any hair if removed from the skins and endow a better texture after cooked. But be careful and don't get yourself burnt.
• If possible, get some yellow rock sugar instead of regular white sugar or white rock sugar because it contains more flavors and in the same time has a more acceptable sweetness.

Instructions

Prepare the pork belly

1.Heat wok or pan until hot, then place the pork belly in, skin downside. Use hand to move the skin on the surface of the wok until the skin is almost seared. Wash carefully to clean the seared part completely. Then cut the pork belly into 2 cm cubes.

2.In a large pot with enough water, place the pork belly cubes in. Add scallion, smashed ginger, cooking wine and Sichuan peppercorn. I highly recommend you trying to use Sichuan peppercorn in the process of blanching meat, it is such an odd taste killer. Bring to a boiling and then continue cook for 5 minutes. Transfer the pork belly out and wash if necessary. I wash it in the boiling water in the video. Set aside and drain.

Fry the pork belly

In a wok, sear the pork belly cubes for 4-5 minutes. Where will be a layer of oil at the bottom. Transfer the pork belly cubes out. And leave only 1 tablespoon of oil in wok, save the extra oil for other vegetable stir fry.

Slow down the fire, add the smashed yellow rock sugar in. Continue fry with very slow fire. The sugar firstly melts, then it turns into yellow and finally amber.

Slowly cook to get flavors

Once it bubbles, add the pork belly cubes in. Quickly mix. Pour in hot water to cover the pork belly, add light soy sauce, scallion and smashed ginger.

Cover and simmer for 1 hour using middle fire. Check the softness at the stage. Then turn up the fire, remove the lid and thicken the sauce. Pick up and discard scallion and ginger. They have finished their tasks. Optionally but highly recommend adding around ½ tablespoon of black vinegar or lemon juice in. This add extra aroma. No sour taste at the final dish.

It is ok that the pork belly seems to be quite plain now. Continue heating and the sugar will turn the pork cubes into something very good looking. Continue pushing and moving the pork cubes to avoid over-heating partially in the last minutes. It is done when pork belly is well colored and the oil at the bottom begins to turn transparent. Serve hot!

How to reheat HongShaoRou

Regular re-heating is not a good choice. I recommend steaming with a cover. This can keep the flavors and texture as much as possible.

🧾Recipe