red braised pork

The juicy and fatty pork belly is smothered in caramelized sauce. It's sticky, savory, sweet, and succulent. 

Hong Shao Rou 红烧肉

500 g pork belly,

neutral oil

g rock sugar sugar

tbsp light soy sauce

tbsp dark soy sauce

Shaoxing wine

water

ginger

star anise pods

tangerine peel (fresh

onions

Blanch the pork belly. In a pot of boiling water, gently drop the pork belly cubes in. Blanch for 3-4 minutes until the scum rises to the top. This ensures that the impurities won’t be in our final sauce.

Rinse your pork chunks for any impurities. Drain and tab excess moisture with a tea towel.

Heat a heavy duty pot (like a dutch oven or large cast iron with a lid) on medium high heat.

Drizzle in the oil and add the pork.

Sear the pork on all sides and add the sugar and soy sauce in.

Once the sugar has caramelized and coated the pork, deglaze the pot with Shaoxing wine and water.

Add the ginger, citrus peel, and star anise.

Cover and lower the heat to low. Simmer for 1 hour until the pork is tender. Supplement with more water if the sauce seems too thick / might burn. Alternatively, you can cook this in an instant pot or pressure cooker with 300mL of water for 20 minutes on high pressure.

Serve on top of rice. Drizzle the glaze on the rice first and plate a generous mountain of pork belly! Garnish with scallions and enjoy!!

This red braised pulled pork has all the delicious flavor of a traditional Chinese red braised or hóngshāo pork belly, but we make it with more accessible/affordable pork shoulder, and cook it in the oven!

Red Braised Pulled Pork

pork

sugar

soy sauce

bay leaves

star anise

Arrange a rack in the center of your oven, and preheat to 375°F/190°C. In a large Dutch oven or other cast iron pot, heat the oil over medium high heat. Brown the pork in batches (don’t crowd the pot), until it’s browned on all sides.

Add all the pork back to the Dutch oven, along with the Shaoxing wine, sugar, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, bay leaves, star anise, and water. Stir.

Cover and bring to a boil on the stove. Once boiling, place the Dutch oven into the oven uncovered. Cook for 2½ hours, checking the pork every 45 minutes or so (stir and add more water if the pot starts drying out), until the pork is tender and falling apart.

Dear Sarah: the first few years with kids are the toughest, you'll get through them, NO DOUBT !! And eventually you'll look back at them, almost nostalgically, when your kids become teenagers... 
Anyway, just made this recipe with "spieringgebraad", spiering is an excellent piece of pork which comes from the neck. 
Whenever you folks start talking about cut A or B or C... My brain hurts because I simply can't find stuff like pork belly over here. I once tried to ask the local butcher for pork belly, he looked absolutely flabbergasted, as in: why on earth would somebody ask for that? (I eventually got the pork belly, but yeah...)
Anyway, this is pretty much BBQ pulled pork, but made in the oven (I'm a big BBQ/smoker fan). I must say: it tasted absolutely GREAT !!!
My BBQ guts tell me to next time add some rub when I make this, just to add some extra flavour, but honestly, this recipe is a GREAT recplacement for when I don't have the time to light up the smoker for 6 to 8+ hours...
Ow, btw, little tip I learned only recently, but which helps tremendously: when you reheat the pulled pork, use butter and add a little apple juice. Makes it so much more juicy !!! mmmm... ;)

Try Whole Foods; also, the spice section at larger supermarkets usually carries it; Amazon has a huge selection of star anise. Hard to think of a substitute for this spice, since it has such a unique, and piquant licorice-y flavor. Well worth searching out for the real deal. Really, don't leave it out of this recipe!

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Hong Shao Rou 红烧肉

Red Braised Pulled Pork

Top 2 red braised pork recipes from across the web

The most viewed red braised pork recipes by Recipe Cart users, saved from over 20,000 sites. Or, go to our Recipe Search Engineic_arrow_forward_48px

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Hong Shao Rou 红烧肉

Red Braised Pulled Pork

The most viewed red braised pork recipes by Recipe Cart users, saved from over 20,000 sites. Or, go to our Recipe Search Engine