Pork Belly Asian Style (Spicy & Oven Roasted)

Finished product.

Ingredients for marinade: garlic, hot peppers, ginger, Shao Xing cooking wine (you may have heard of it from Iron Chef), soy sauce, and sugar.

Spices for sauce: Sichuan pepper (aromatic and slightly tongue numbing), star anise. Add them to marinade reduction sauce, then take them out before serving.

Chop finely, or use a food blender, the garlic, ginger, and hot peppers. (If you chop them, be careful with your hands afterwards.)

Pork Belly, choose whatever fat content that suits you.

Score the skin. Cut just through the fat to let marinade through. But if you want a prettier product, just score the outer most skin.(Use a very sharp knife, the skin is tough. My knife was not sharp enough till I made the first cut but was too lazy to sharpen it. They were sharpened the next day.)

Add Shao Xing cooking wine (the cooking wine is a mixture of Shao Xing Wine and salt water), soy sauce, garlic, ginger, hot peppers, sugar. To taste,. The cooking wine has salt in it, so does soy sauce. The final sauce for the pork is going to be a marinade reduction. Adding extra salt might make the final sauce too salty. Recommend putting the marinade with the meat into a bag, squeeze out the air, then put the bag in a bowl and then into a fridge. Marinade for at least a few hours.

Bake it at 180 degrees Celsius for one and half hour, maybe more depending on your belly's thickness. If you want to keep the skin moist during baking, add a pan of water under the pork container (like baking bread).

Marinate saved for reduction. Let the belly bake in oven and save the marinate for the sauce. Wait till the pork belly's done so you can use the fat render in the sauce. Add pepper corn and star anise while reducing to extra the aromas.

Add honey to taste while reduction is going on. Do not leave the pan unattended after adding honey. It burns quickly. Keep stirring the reduction. When the reduction gets really thick, add a few tea spoonful of fat from the pork belly. Stir vigorously to emulsify, till the sauce is shiny.

Plate and serve. The pork belly in the picture is laid on top of a bed of green onions cut into thin strips. Eat both together to avoid an oily after taste.

doggo.

Edit: spelling and grammer. Adding directions for peppercorn and anise.