I chose pork belly as my meat selection for this blog entry. As one might guess, this meat I will be talk about if a fatty piece from the belly of a pig. Who would’ve guessed? Due to the high content of fat, it is quite popular to roast this piece of meat. Slow roasting it with barbecue sauce gives it plenty of flavor, and it melts in your mouth. But as I mentioned above, this meat is usually very high in fat content, so some people may find it very greasy and oily. In Chinese cuisine, we prefer not to have a mouth full of grease (most of the time), we often prefer simpler dishes or dishes that could go well with carbs, such as rice. So instead of telling you a method on how to roast it, I will tell you have to braised it to get a rich flavour that goes well with rice! Since I didn’t have the time to go to the supermarket, I will not be creating the dish itself. Instead here is a simple recipe and method for cooking Pork Belly with Preserved Mustard Greens (梅菜扣肉 Miu choy kau yok).

 

This recipe can serve up to 4 people. For myself, I only live with my mother, so this dish can be eaten for several meals, it so happens that the longer I leave the meat alne, the more flavor it picks up. On the other hand, the meat will get even softer to a point wear it easily break apart, which might not be as good for the dish, but causes no problems if it does so happen.

 

500g pork belly (about 15 slices)

500g preserved mustard greens

2tbs soy sauce

2 tbs sugar

½ tbs dark soy sauce

1 tbs cornstarch (can be modified)

½ cup oyster sauce

150g ginger

25g garlic

3 tbs sesame oil

750mL water

½ cup light soya sauce

oil for cooking

 

First thing first, wash the preserved mustard greens like there’s no tomorrow. There’s often residue dirt and salt all over it. I wouldn’t want gritty residue when I eat this dish, and I’m sure you wouldn’t either. Due to all the dirt and salt, I often soak the vegetables for a couple of hours before rinsing them off a couple of times. I usually do it overnight since I don’t want to wait several hours during the day. When they’re clean squeeze out as much water s possible and roughly chop it up.

 

I usually cube up the pork belly and blanch them to get rid of a little bit of fat and odor before doing anything else. After blanching it and letting it cool down, I put in the soya sauce, sugar, dark soya sauce, and sesame all together and let it marinate for about 30 minutes. You can always do it longer, but because we’ll be braising this dish, there will be plenty of flavor either way.

 

After marinating I stir fry the pork belly with the garlic and ginger before adding the preserved mustard greens. I stir fry it all together for another two minutes before adding 750mL of water I add the oyster sauce and allow for it to boil. I proceed to add the ½ cup of soya sauce and allow it to simmer for about 30 minutes. After doing so, I mix a slurry with the cornstarch to thicken the sauce and let it simmer for another 20 minutes. I then turn off the heat and let it sit for another 20 minutes so the pork and veggies can soak up more sauce.

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Due to the strong flavors, eating this on it's own could be very salty and rich. I prefer to eat it with rice, but it pairs well with noodles as well.