Bacon, Chinese style — salo po kitajski
“Some things cannot be hurried. Pork belly is one. Forgiveness is another.”
Known at home as salo po kitajski, bacon the Chinese way; the Chinese know it as hong shao rou, red-braised pork. Cheap pork belly, a caramel of sugar, and an hour in a dark, fragrant bath. It comes out lacquered and soft enough to eat with a spoon. Rice is not optional.
Ingredients
- 600–800 g pork belly (streaky bacon slab, unsmoked)
- 2 tbsp sugar
- a thumb of ginger, sliced
- 6 cloves garlic, peeled and left whole
- 2 spring onions, cut into long pieces
- 2 star anise
- black pepper
- ½ glass (about 100 ml) soy sauce
- ½ glass (about 100 ml) white wine
- water to cover
- oil
Steps
- Boil the belly whole in a pot of water for 10 minutes. Drain, cool a little, cut into 3 cm cubes.
- Caramelise. A little oil in a heavy pot, add the sugar, let it melt and turn amber. Add the pork cubes and turn them until they are red-brown all over. Take them out.
- Build the braise. Ginger slices on the bottom of the pot, pork back on top, then the garlic, spring onion, star anise and pepper.
- Pour in the soy sauce, the wine, and enough water to just cover everything.
- Simmer, lid on, for 1 hour. Low heat, an occasional stir. In the last 10 minutes take the lid off and let the sauce reduce to a glaze.
- Serve over rice with the sauce spooned over.
Tips
- If it looks pale after an hour, keep reducing: the colour comes at the very end.
- Cold, it slices like a terrine; the fat sets and the sauce turns to jelly. Reheat gently or eat as it is on bread.
- Star anise is the flavour that makes it taste "Chinese"; do not skip it, do not double it.