Red braised pork

Brian @Brian1981

Red braised pork is a very common dish in China. Every region has their own flavor profile, and there is no definitive way of making this dish. The goal is to make the pork belly tender enough that you can cut it with chopsticks, and of course it needs to be red.
This is the flavor I liked, and I use oyster sauce and fish sauce which is not traditionally in this dish.

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Ingredients

1 hour ish

3-4 servings

1-2 lbs Skin on Pork belly
Shaoxing wine (cooking wine)
Ginger
Green onion
Sugar
Salt
Oyster sauce
Fish sauce
Sichuan peppercorn
Star Anise
stick Cinnamon
leaf Bay
Ground white pepper
Corn starch slurry for thickening if needed

Cooking Instructions

1 hour ish

1

Torch the skin until it's blackened to make sure all the hair is removed, and then scrub off the charred part. The skin will have a yellow / red tinge afterwards.
2

Add cold water to a pot, enough to cover pork. Cut pork into preferred size (1.5 in cube) Add shaoxing wine (about 1/2 cup), ginger (about 1 inch knob and sliced), green onion (1 stalk).
Boil and skim off foam. Remove pork and discard water.
3

Wash pork in hot /warm water to remove any foam.
4

Make caramel (can use caramel coloring soy sauce to replace this step)
Add small amount of oil to work, add sugar (about 3 tbsp). Keep stirring while heating up, until sugar melts and the will turn into caramel fairly quickly. Add pork to coat the caramel on pork. (Watch for oil splatter)
5

Add one star anise, 1 in piece of cinnamon, about 1-2 tsp Sichuan peppercorn, 1 bay leaf, 2 in knob of ginger (sliced), 2-3 stalks of green onion and white pepper. Stir until fragrant, then add soy sauce, oyster sauce, fish sauce, and shaoxing wine, and enough water to cover pork.
6

Bring the wok to a boil, skim off any foam that is still there, and then keep it at rolling boil for another 15 minutes. This step will make sure the pork will absorb the coloring and turn red.
7

Put everything in pressure cooker and cook on high for 35 minutes. Quick release pressure.
8

Remove all pork and sieve through the braising liquid to remove all spices and ginger/green onions.
9

Put pork and braising liquid to wok, high heat to reduce the liquid to a thicker sauce. Adjust seasoning to taste (mostly needs more sugar. There should be plenty of salt in fish sauce and soy sauce)
10

Once the liquid is thickened, time to eat.