Even if I am not a Taiwanese myself I proudly say my recipe of this dish has been recognised by most of my Taiwanese friends who had tried it. So now I am sharing mine here. But mind that, I will call this a replica because this is not the traditional one.
The following amount is good enough to feed 8+ meals serving with rice.
INGREDIENTS:
1 kg Skin On Pork Belly
3-4 pcs Shitake Mushrooms
1 Tbsp Dried Shallot or 2 Fresh Shallot – diced
2 cups Shiao-Xin Cooking Wine
500ml Taiwanese Soy Sauce
100ml Dark Soy Sauce
2 Tbsp Crystal Rock Sugar
1 Tbsp Five Spices Powder
2L water
METHOD:
- Bring a small pot of water to boil. Scoop out 1-2 cups of boiling water to soak the shitake mushrooms.
- Meanwhile use knife to cut out the skin out from the pork belly. Blanch the skin with the boiling water until the skin curl up a bit. Remove from pot and let cool down for a while then chop up into 5mm-1cm pieces. This blanching process helps with easier in chopping the skin. Chop up the rest of the meat into same sizes.
- Once the mushrooms are fully expanded, rinse under cold water, then chop up into small cubes similar size to the pork cubes.
- In a large pan or pot, add in all the meat, skin and mushroom. Add in the rest of the ingredients, and then top up with water until fully cover all the content.
- Bring the whole lot to boil for 30 mins, then simmer for another hour until the sauce is thicken. Stir occassionally to avoid meat sticking together.
- Serve with rice, and Enjoy!
P.S. You can also add some boil eggs to cook together then there you go the flavoured eggs! (滷蛋)
Causal Recipes by Cindy Cecilia Ngo 