Lu Rou Fan is considered comfort food and is available pretty much everywhere. It can be enjoyed anytime of the day really and I’d say this makes for a perfect after party supper (not that I’m advocating having supper, or partying, for that matter). At its simplest form, it’s just meat over rice, although eggs are commonly added. Some places serve this with green vegetables, some with Japanese pickled daikon. But there’s no denying that this will please any porcine lover. Well it most definitely pleased me. Over and over again. I love cooking a huge portion for one. Hehe.
Cooking this is relatively easy, and I opted for the lazy method with my trusty Philips Pressure Cooker so the cooking time was significantly reduced. But I have typed out both lazy and traditional methods for you.
500g of skin-on pork belly, cut into small dices (think of dicing thick-cut bacons) / 500克 带皮花腩, 切成小块 3 cloves of garlic, chopped / 3瓣蒜米,切碎 40g Rock Sugar / 40克 冰糖 1/4 cup good soy sauce (I used a mixture of liquid aminos and dark soy, you might want to adjust the ratio depending on how dark your soy sauce is) / 1/4杯 酱油 (可以用liquid aminos和黑酱油来调你要的颜色) 1/4 cup (45 grams) of Chinese rice wine / 1/4杯 (45克)米酒 1 small stick of cinnamon / 1支 桂皮 1 tsp of ground white pepper / 1茶匙 胡椒粉 1/4 tsp of five spice powder / 1/4茶匙 五香粉 1/2 cup of fried shallots (store-bought or homemade) / 1/2杯 炸葱 (外面买包装的或是自己炸) 2 cups (710 grams) of water / 2杯 (710克)水 5 large hard-boiled eggs, peeled / 5颗 水煮蛋,剥壳
Method
Pressure Cooker Method: 压力锅的做法:
Dump everything except for the eggs into the pot and cook with pressure on for 30minutes. Release pressure and add hardboiled eggs, cook uncovered until the sauce thickens and reduced significantly. Season to taste.
Heat non-stick pan and add pork belly (no oil needed, it’s fatty enough!) to cook for a few minutes until the fat is starting to render. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, then add soy sauce, rock sugar, cinnamon, rice wine, white pepper, fried shallots. Mix everything together and then finally add water and bring to a simmer. Cook for around 1 and 1/2 hour to 2 hours on medium-low heat until the sauce is thickened slightly and the pork is starting to get quite tender. Add hard-boiled egg and cook for 10-15 minutes further until the sauce is nicely gelatinous. You may need to add water during the cooking process if the liquid is reducing too fast.
Serve the Lu Rou over rice garnished with greens of your choice.