Whether you love traditional Chinese food or you are simply looking for a weeknight dinner dish, today’s twice-cooked pork belly (回锅肉) will make you happy! Whenever my boyfriend and I see it on a menu, we almost always end up ordering it and when we don’t, I’ll usually end up making it at home soon after. I can’t wait to show you how to make my version of this tasty dish at home today.
The ingredients for this dish are simple: pork belly and leek. If you like, you can use green pepper, cabbage or garlic scapes as a substitute for leek.
As the name implies, the pork belly needs to be boiled first before being stir-fried. Here is a tip on how to boil the meat: instead of adding the pork belly directly into hot water, submerge it under cold water, and cook until the water starts to boil. You can use this tip when cooking many other Chinese meat dishes such as braised pork ribs. It helps to reduce irony, raw blood smell of the meat.
When the pork belly has changed color after boiling, wait until it cools down and cut into thick slices.
After boiling and slicing the pork belly, I pan-fried over medium-high heat to render the fat until the edges are browned and crispy.
For seasoning, I used a combination of Lao Gan Ma Black Beans Chili Sauce, cooking wine, oyster sauce and dark soy sauce. Cooking wine, oyster sauce and soy sauce are essential to Chinese cooking, I use them all on a daily basis. As for Lao Gan Ma Black Beans Chili Sauce, it is one of the most popular and well-known chili sauces in China. When added, it helps to significantly boost the flavor and add a spicy kick to the dish.
I love this dish because of the texture of the rich pork belly combined with the warming spice of the black bean chili oil sauce. The soy and oyster sauces create a multi-dimensional flavor profile where that spice and richness is balanced with a more savory note. I’ve found that the spicy and savory flavors of this dish lend themselves perfectly to be eaten with plain white rice. The white rice will help to contrast the bold flavors of this dish.
Below is a recap of how I made this dish.
I hope you enjoy making this delicious double-cooked pork belly at home. If you like this recipe, please leave a rating and share it with your friends!
- half a pound pork belly
- 1 bunch leek, cleaned, trimmed, peeled and cut into pieces like the picture
- 2-3 cloves garlic, peeled
- 3-4 ginger slices
- For seasoning:
- 2 tablespoons Lao Gan Ma Black Beans Chili Sauce
- 1 tablespoon cooking wine
- half a tablespoon oyster sauce
- half a tablespoon dark soy sauce
- Immerse pork belly in a large pot of cold water with garlic cloves and ginger slices added.
- Turn to high heat and bring the water to boil.
- After the water starts to boil, turn to medium-low heat and cook the pork belly for about 20 minutes with lid on (carefully turn the pork belly once during cooking)
- Remove the pork belly from the pan, wait a couple of minutes for it to cool down and cut into thick slices.
- Heat a pan over medium-high heat, stir fry the cooked pork belly for about 4-5 minutes until browned and crispy (drain off the excess oil)
- Add in the seasoning sauce and stir fry for about 1-2 minutes to mix well.
- Toss in the leek and continue cooking for another 1 minute, remove from pan and serve.
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