Inspired by the Chinese way of braising pork belly: the pork cooks slowly in a flavourful sauce until it is very soft and infused with the flavour.
- ⏲️ Prep time: 10 min
- 🍳 Cook time: 3 hours
- 🔪Tools: a pot with a lid
Ingredients
- pork belly, as much as you want (I used 500 grams); make sure it has a lot of fat
- half a cup of soy sauce
- 3 tablespoons of allulose or another sweetener
- 5 garlic cloves (strict carnivores might prefer a few dashes of dried garlic instead, or leaving them out completely)
- 1/3 cup of lemon juice
- spices of your liking for pork; I find the following most fitting: cinnamon, clove powder, lemongrass powder, star anise, fennel seeds
Directions
- Cut the pork belly into cubes (the size of one mouthful is what I find most satisfying).
- Put the cubes in a pot. Add the soy sauce, the allulose, 2/3 of the lemon juice, the garlic cloves (quartered) and the spices. Fill up with water until the pork is just covered.
- Put the lid on the pot and bring it to a boil, then let it simmer on low heat for 2.5 hours, stirring every now and then. The pork should get soft as butter without falling apart.
- Take the lid off and raise the heat so that the water evaporates and the fatty sauce thickens; this should take about 30 minutes. Taste it. I like to add the rest of the lemon juice at the end because I like that sour note; see if you like it too. You can also add some more soy sauce or sweetener if you think it fits. Enjoy.
Notes
- If you keep cooking it, the fat will render and you can store the meat in a jar: covered by the fat, it keeps for a very long time.
- I sometimes add some cream or crème fraîche if I want the taste a little softer. And if you have issues eating so much fat, just sieve the meat before plating. You can use the excess fat for the Creamy Butter Mayonnaise recipe; simply use the pork fat instead of butter.