I cooked: Braised Pork Belly with Soy Sauce (Loh Chu Yuk)

I will be posting some simple homecooking recipes regularly for the benefit of my cousin who has just arrived in the UK to further her studies. She was lamenting about how she has very little experience in the kitchen, hopefully some of the recipes that I am sharing here will help her find her way around the kitchen and that she will not miss Malaysia's food too much.

Once a student myself, I frequently made dishes which only require me to place all the ingredients in a pot and braise away. One of my favorite dishes would be Loh Chu Yuk (a.k.a. Tau Yew Bak), a dish whereby pork belly is braised in soy sauce-water mixture for a couple of hours until the fat layers are all wobbly and melt in the mouth. If you find pork belly a little too fat for your liking, then you can substitute with pork ribs or just lean pork but trust me, using pork belly is worth the extra weight you would be putting on after consuming this dish! Sinful and absolutely delicious!

Braised Pork Belly with Soy Sauce and Boiled Egg (Loh Chu Yuk)

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 2 1/2 hours

Serves 2-3

Ingredients

500g pork belly, cut into 1.5cm width

10 shitake mushrooms, soaked overnight, halved and stalks removed

4-5 cloves of garlic, minced

2 onions, sliced thinly

5-6 dried chillies, soaked for 1 hour (you can add more if you prefer it "spicier")

2-3 eggs, boiled and peeled (1 per person)

1 1/2 tbsp cooking oil

Soy sauce, to taste

1 tbsp dark soy sauce

Water, approx. 300ml

Garnish

Red chilli, deseeded and sliced thinly

Spring onion, cut thinly

1. Place the sliced pork belly into a container and marinate with 2 tbsp of soy sauce overnight. This is to infuse the flavours into the pork belly.

2. Heat the oil in a wok on medium heat and add the garlic and onion. Cook for 3-4 mins until the onion has softened.

3. Add the pork belly and brown it slightly. Then, add enough water to cover the pork belly (approx. 300ml), dark soy sauce and about 2 tbsp of soy sauce. Finally, add the dried chillies and mushrooms and braise for 2 hours on low heat or until the fat layers become wobbly.

4. Place the boiled egg into the pot 30 minutes before the dish is ready so that the sauce can be infused into the eggs. The sauce should have thickened slightly at this stage.

5. Always taste your cooking. Add more soy sauce if required. You may also find that some fat are released from the pork belly, just use a spoon to remove this layer of oil.

6. Remove from heat. Garnish and serve immediately with boiled rice.

Enjoy with a bowl of rice!

Yummy yummy