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Homemade Chinese Roast Pork Belly – Siu Yuk 燒肉

Home Made Crispy Skin Pork Belly – Siew Yoke

Okay, this isn’t something we eat a lot of at all, but I really wanted to make it, and it’s Roast Pork Belly. I bought my strip of pork belly with bone in and skin on from the Asian grocery market, and we just got a small slab.

Ingredients:
slab of pork belly
1 or 2 cube of fermented bean curd
Chinese Five Spice (五香粉)
White Pepper
Salt
Rice Vinegar (or white vinegar)

The first thing is first, you gotta clean your meat – so rinse the pork belly off well with cold water, and pat it completely dry with paper towels. You do need to make this a few hours ahead, so plan ahead!

Once the pork is clean, make the marinade for the pork belly by smashing a piece of the fermented bean curd until it’s a paste. Add to the paste the Five Spice, and White Pepper.

Prepare the meat now, by stabbing the skin with your knife – not through the entire skin, but you want lots of punctures on the skin. If you want, cut the actual pork meat so marinade gets through. I didn’t do this as my pork belly has bones.

Then, rub the marinade all over the pork belly EXCEPT the skin. Leave the skin part dry for now with nothing on it. After the marinade is on the pork, rub the salt onto the skin, and do a really good job of it. Try to get it into some puncture holes if you can! Put the entire slab of pork belly onto a wire rack with a line tray underneath and refrigerate for a few hours – or even overnight.

After you’ve marinated for a few hours, take the pork belly out of the fridge while you wait for the oven to preheat. Set the oven to 400F, and then put the pork belly into the oven. Bake for 15-20 minutes and pull it out to brush some rice wine vinegar on the skin. I brush it again after another 20 minutes. Then, continue letting the pork bake until almost thoroughly cooked. To finish the cooking, change the oven setting to broil and give it another 20 minutes for the skin to become fluffy and crunchy.

When the baking has competed, take the pork belly out of the oven and let it rest for 10 a few minutes for the juices to redistribute in the meat, then slice and serve!

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Homemade Black Pepper Sauce with Pork Chop

I didn’t know what to make for a meal this one day, and my other half really likes black pepper sauce – on everything! So, I had some pork chop, and decided to make Pork Chop with Black Pepper Sauce

Ingredients:
3 slices of thin pork chop
1 cup chopped mushrooms
1/2 chopped onions
1 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp white pepper
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1/2 tsp dark soy sauce

First, start by marinating the pork with salt and pepper. Then wash the mushrooms, and chop up all the vegetables.

Pan sear the pork chop in a pan until you got good searing colour on the pork. If it’s thick, finish the pork off in the oven. I like to use thin pork chop to avoid this step – so the meat can be resting while we make the sauce!

In the same pan, saute the mushrooms, onions and garlic until tender. Then, add some water to deglaze the pan, and it will become the gravy sauce that you pour ontop of the pork chop and the rice.

While the vegetables are cooking, prepare the sauce by combining the cornstarch with soy sauce, oyster sauce, and pepper. Mix it with some cold water to dissolve before pouring it into the pan.

You can serve this on a plate of rice and some vegetables. You can substitute the meat for any other protein – and it works with just vegetable stir fry as well! Of course, you can add less water to the pan if you like the sauce thicker. There’s never any set recipes in Chinese cooking! Always taste it, and when you think it tastes good – it’s good!