Extra-easy Taiwanese stewed pork: gravy-style 卤肉
In Taiwan, I had my fair share of 卤肉饭。 A lot of the time, the meat had melted completely into the sauce, melding perfectly with the rice. One of my favorite meals (went back for seconds) was this sauce sitting atop blanched ong choy（ 龙须菜) - both delicious and carb-lite!
Back I home, I wanted to recreate this dish, but the whole chunks of pork belly in many recipes I saw seemed like overkill for the “melty”, almost gravy-like effect I was looking for. I used a pressure cooker base recipe from https://www.pressurecookrecipes.com/instant-pot-taiwanese-braised-pork/ ) , but the pressure cooker probably isn’t necessary. Instead of large chunks of pork belly, I opted to combined salt and pepper pork sausage and thin-sliced (then chopped) pork belly. I also did not fry the shallots myself, opting to use generous amounts of pre-fried Taiwanese shallots and fried shallot sauce.
Ingredients:
1 pound pork sausage + belly. Thinly sliced and minced. The sausage I used only had salt and pepper in ingredients
3 tablespoons brown sugar
a lot of fried shallot ( I would say at least half cup). This adds a majority of the unique flavor
Shaoxing wine
Fried shallot sacue
2 pieces ginger, big pieces ok
5 cloves garlic, crushed small/minced
2 star anise
2 bay leaves
white pepper
5 spice power
Soy sauce
Boiled eggs (optional but tasty)
Procedure:
Fry sausage and pork belly until it browns. I did this in the Instant pot but would be better in a separate vessel, since anything sticking to the bottom of the pot could prevent the pressure cooking process.
Add in sugar (上色）, similar procedure to 红烧肉，want sugar to melt in the rendered fat
Add shallots and shallot oil, garlic, and ginger, then fry a little longer
Deglaze with Shaoxing wine and water.
Add anise, bay leaves white pepper, five spice powder, and soy sauce. At this stage flavor should be almost there, just need to cook a little more to bring out aromatics. I put in pressure cooker for a little but it burned :(
Now, add in the eggs and cook until they are flavorful (minimum 10 minutes). Could skip eating eggs for the first meal and keep cooking later if short on time.