Singapore-style Braised Pork Belly (卤肉 aka Lor Bak)

If you're health-conscious or currently on a diet, I suggest you navigate from this recipe right away. Some people might substitute pork belly (三层肉) with lean meat (瘦肉), but this decadent dish is not the same without the fatty meat. It's like taking the cream out of ice cream (like the 1 ingredient ice cream), it's still good but it will not be the same.

Every household has their own "secret" recipe. While this recipe is of no secret, it is from my mother, which was probably in turn passed down from my grandfather. Mummy couldn't tell me the exact amount of ingredients in the recipe so once again, I've utilised the fine art of agar-ation (estimation) to write down the recipes. Please choose to take it as a reference, change the amount accordingly to your preference or "cook" by ear. *wink*

Braised Pork Belly (卤肉 aka Lor Ba)
(Please credit if you've enjoyed it. Thank you!)

300g     Pork Belly

   2        Cinnamon sticks, about 12cm total

 3-4      Star Anise

 1tsp     Cloves

 4-6     Garlic cloves, skin removed and smashed slightly with back of knife

1tbsp    Sesame Oil

1tbsp    Dark Soya Sauce

1/2 cup Light Soya Sauce

1tbsp    White Sugar

1 liter    Water, add more to taste
A dash of white pepper

Optional (but quite standard additional)

  15g     Rock sugar, more or less to taste
    4      Eggs, hard boiled or Mollet

    5      Tau Pok or Tau Gua or both, cut into half each

  6-8     Dried Shitake Mushrooms

Mummy says cinnamon sticks, star anise and cloves are the "holy trinity" of any good 卤汁 (braising liquid, Singapore-style that is). Here are some prep work before we get to braising.

• Scald Pork Belly in boiling water for 5 minutes, remove and cool slightly. Slice pork belly once it's cool enough to handle 
• Pan sear it slightly to get a light yellow crust, remove and reserve. 
• Prepare your hard boiled or mollet eggs accordingly
• Soak dried shiitake mushrooms for at least 20 minutes

1. Heat Sesame oil over Medium-high heat, stir fry the Cinnamon sticks, Star Anise, Cloves and Garlic Cloves until fragrant.

2. Return the sliced pork belly (eggs, tau pok, soaked shiitake mushrooms, if using) to pot and add all of the water and seasoning (and rock sugar if the sweeter Hokkien version is preferred). Adjust the saltiness accordingly. It's ok if it seems like there's too much water, the liquid will reduce later.

3. Bring mixture to a boil on High heat before turning to Low heat and simmer for at least 2 hours with the pot lid slightly ajar. 

4. Serve immediately or reheat before serving. It always taste better the next day.

Thoughts: Lor Bak or simply, Lor, is a well-loved dish, by elders specially, and they will go for the fattiest piece of meat they can find. I guess it's like comfort food of their era. As a proud Teochew ah-hiah (brother), my grandfather also braised pork trotters, duck, chicken, duck kidneys, chicken livers, probably other things too, and he loved having them with his plain rice porridge. I love the braised offal, and he will always reserve some for me. <3

The "original" method for the lor nerg (braised eggs) is to simmer the eggs together with the rest of ingredients but this often result in an overcooked yolk. I prefer to submerge them in some of the cooled braising liquid for about 1-2 hours (as with ajitsuke tamago) for it to absorb the flavours without getting more cook than it already is. The longer you have them submerged, the richer the flavours will be. 

As a kid, rice drenched in the braised gravy and a mashed up braised egg was a popular dish fed to us. Maybe that's why it was 1 of the favourite food among my siblings, cousins and childhood friends. I love the egg white part, but didn't like the dry, powdery yolk (still don't like overcooked yolks now) although I still fought with them for it anyway. 东西不抢，不好吃！(Food tastes better when you fight for it.)

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