野和尚的燒菜筆記

Taiwanese people have eaten Brised Pork on Rice, EVERYONE.
It is such a local dishes, maybe like Sushi in Japan, or chips in the USA.
You can easy to find on street, it written in mandarin as 滷肉飯 or 魯肉飯 and speak as 「 ló͘-bah-pn̄g」.

Braised pork on rice use soy sauce to stew pork mince.
But sometimes will use beef mince, like in Tainan, or use lamb in some restaurant.
This dish be created from long time ago, the way to make braised pork maybe from China.
But when time past, Taiwan and China become two nation-state, even keep some similar culture.
Food culture goes like this, similar but different.
In 1950`, Taiwan people are poor to eat meat.
So when a family got a piece of meat ( usually pork )，they will try to share whole family, maybe 4-8 person or more.
What they do is cut pork as tiny piece to share, and use soy sauce to create flavor and salty, so they put on rice to eat.
This dish in China is rare to see, so I think it may be Taiwan special street food.

Each restaurant have their own recipe.
Soy sauce is the main sauce, when it combine the spicy or herb and pork fat you add in will be incredible tasty.
The word 「滷 ló͘」, it means use very small heat to stew sauce to thick.
And there big difference tasty between northern and southern.


(from web)
At northern, often can find kind of this braised pork on rice.
It use roughtly cut pork ( usually lean meat ), fry first and stew after.
The sauce of this way will be more bright, you can taste salty from soy sauce and flavor from pork and rice.
It is really good.

(from web)
At southern, this kind of braised pork on rice is popular.
It use pork belly to cut tiny strip, and add pork skin to stew with soy sauce.
You can easily know it`s different taste from upper pic.
Not only fat and lean, but also pork skin release gelatine, it make sauce smell good, taste more "pork".
When the braised pork put on rice, it goes fantastic, even you finish the bow, you can still feel your month sticky.

For me, I LOVE southern-style.
So this time I want to share how I made it at home.
It`s easy to do, but need some patient.

【Hand-cut braised pork on rice】（手切冰糖滷肉飯）

Ingredients :
pork belly about 300g
pork skin about 150g
garlic about 5 clove, slice
shallot about 5 clove, slice
crystal sugar about 120g (you can use just sugar)
water about 50-70 ml (with sugar)
soy sauce about 350 ml
cooking liquor about 100ml
a pinch of salt
some water to cover over

You can add some onion, spring onion, chili or ginger if you like.

Rice as much as you can eat.

How to mke it

1. When you in the butcher, you may ask to help you slice you pork belly into about 1/4 inch thickness.
2. Or you can let pork belly flat down and forzen about 30 mintue, it will let you cut more easier. 
3. Cut your pork skin and your pork belly to 1/2 inch X 1/2 inch.


（like this, please use the sharpest knife you have, because pork skin is hard to cut......）
4、Heat a fry-pan, add some oil to fry garlic and shallot slice, till you can smell their flavor.
     And pour it out, stand-by to be use.


（fry like this color)

5、Use the same fry-pan, add few oil and sugar, low heat.
     Fry your sugar to melt, and becam brown.
     Add water carefully, the caramel temperature is very high, it maybe splash.
     Pour it out and stand-by to use.

6、Use the same pan, add garlic, shallot and pork belly and pork skin. 
     Fry about 3-5 minute to brown, add soy sauce, cooking liquor, caramel, a pinch of saly, and add water to cover all ingredients.
     Turn to high heat, when it boil, turn to very low heat immediately, stew for 3 hours.
     Remember stir it occasionally to avoid something stick on bottom.
     If you feel water is not enough, add more to cover.
     At last 10 minute, you can taste and add salt to you like, and turn to high heat for more 3 minute.
     Finally turn the heat off, wait your braised pork cool down, put it into refrigarator for one night to let flavor get together.


7、One day after, you can find it became like jelly, now you can easy to get fat on top off, if you hate it.

And now you can grab some you want to put on rice to heat.

(so goooooooood！ yummy！)

Sometimes in Taiwan, we will eat with some pickled radish, but I don`t have it at home, so...
Pickled radish looks like this.

(from web)

If you are interesting, there has another dish named 「 ló͘-bah-pn̄g 」 in Tainan.
It use big piece of pork belly, look like this.

(from web)
But this dish in northern often named 「 焢肉飯 khòng-bah-pn̄g 」.
I think it just like "french fries" and "chips", haha.

This my first time to share my recipe in English.
Hope you guys will like.