My home comforts: Braised belly pork with soy & black vinegar 

My home comforts: Braised belly pork with soy & black vinegar


I got this recipe when on a filming trip to Shanghai. The belly pork needs to be well layered with fat – in Shanghai they call it five-layer belly pork.

SERVES 4

2 tbsp sunflower oil

6 spring onions, cut on the diagonal into 3cm lengths

10g root ginger, peeled and finely sliced

5cm cinnamon stick

1 star anise

1 bay leaf

600g belly pork with rind off, cut into 3cm pieces

4 tbsp dark soy sauce

3 tbsp Shaoxing rice wine or dry sherry

½ tsp salt

40g soft light brown sugar

¾ tbsp black vinegar

  • Heat the oil in a wide pan. Add the spring onions, ginger, cinnamon, star anise and bay leaf and slowly sauté until the spring onions are golden brown and fragrant. Add the pork and lightly colour the outside of the meat.
  • Add the soy sauce, rice wine or sherry, salt, sugar, black vinegar and enough water to barely cover the meat, then stir. Simmer for 30 minutes with a lid on the pan. Remove the lid and simmer for a further 15-20 minutes or until the liquid has reduced down to a sticky glaze that generously coats the pork. Serve immediately with rice.

TIP If you can’t get black vinegar, use rice vinegar or at a pinch, balsamic, which is sweeter, so cut back on the sugar by 5g.

 

 

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