Braised Pork On Rice Lu Rou Fan (Braised Pork Rice Bowl)

滷肉饭

Ingredients (serves 4)

600g pork belly (with skin)

1 tablespoon sake (optional)

55g small onions (sliced thinly to make fried shallots)

3 small onions (diced)

2 garlic cloves (diced)

2 eggs (or a few quail eggs) - optional

1 tablespoon brown sugar (or rock sugar)

400ml water

Seasoning

2 tablespoon dark soy sauce

2  tablespoon light soy sauce

1 teaspoon five spice powder

Dashes of white pepper

1 cinnamon stick

1 star anise

Optional (to thicken the sauce during simmering)

A few pieces of pork skin

A few slices of ginger

A few sprigs of spring onion

1 tablespoon sake

1. Blanch pork belly in a wok/pot of boiling water. Once cooled sufficiently, cut into strips of 1cm.

2. Clean the pork skin and pluck off hair. Boil the pork skin with the spring onions, ginger slices and sake. Then simmer for 15minutes. Remove from liquid and let it cool down. Once cooled, use blender to grind the pork skin into smaller pieces.

3. Hard boil the eggs (or quail eggs, if using). Once cooled, de-shell and cut eggs into half. 

4. Put sufficient oil in wok and fry shallots under low heat until golden and crispy. Remove remaining oil from the wok. Set aside the crispy shallots.

5. Heat up wok to high/smoking. Add the pork and stir fry until the liquid from the pork has evaporated. Add sake over the pork and continue to stir fry until the alcohol has evaporated and pork edges are golden brown. Turn the heat down to medium.

6. Add diced onions and stir fry until translucent and fragrant. Add the diced garlic cloves and stir fry until fragrant.

7. Add sugar to the pork and stir fry for 1 minute.

8. Add dark and light soy sauce to the pork from the side of the wok, then stir fry to mix. 

9. Add water to the pork, followed by five spice powder, white pepper, cinnamon stick, star anise and fried shallot crisps. Stir to mix thoroughly. Turn the heat down to low and simmer for 45minutes or until pork is tender. Skim off the oil/pork fat that is released during simmering. Stir ocassionally to precent sticking. Add the pork skin (from step 2) and stir to mix in thoroughly. Simmer for another 15minutes and stir ocassionally to prevent sticking.

10. Wash the leafy greens and blanches them. 

11. Serve the pork with rice, vegetables and eggs.

Ikameshi (Squid Stuffed with Glutinous Rice)

 乌贼饭

Ikameshi is a dish we tried in one of our trips to Japan. So, when we caught a lot of squids from our offshore fishing trip recently, I tried to cook ikameshi. This is my adaptation of stuffed squid (sotong) recipes from Cookism, Cooking with Dog and Cooking With Mama Betsy

Ingredients

6 medium squids (sotong) around 600g

100g Japanese glutinous rice, Mochigome (substitute: Japanese short grain rice)

500ml water

2 tablespoon Japanese soy sauce

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon sake (substitute: shao xing wine)

satay sticks (cut into two) or toothpicks

Method

1. Rinse the glutinous rice until the water runs clear. Soak the rice for at least 2 hours and drain.

2. Clean and remove the insides of the squids using a spoon. Dab the squids dry. Cut up the squid heads (beak and eyes removed) into small pieces and set aside.

3. Fill each squid belly with glutinous rice and the pieces of squid head until 60% full. Gently shake the squid so that the rice can fill the bottom of the squid. Then use satay stick or toothpick to close up the squid.

4. Prepare the braising liquid: put water, soy sauce, sugar and sake into a pot. Add the squids and bring to boil over medium heat. Once boiling, skim off the foam and scum. Then, lower the heat to low-medium and cover with an otoshibuta (drop lid) to limit evaporation. Boil for 40minutes. At the 20th minute mark, flip the squids. After 30minutes, remove the squids from the pot. Boil the sauce to reduce it.

5. Once the squids have cooled down a little, slice the squids to bite size. Drizzle with the sauce and serve warm.