Taiwanese Braised Pork Belly Rice (Lu Rou Fan)

Ingredients

• 2 lbs pork belly, diced
• 1 cup packaged fried shallots
• 4 slices ginger
• 10 cloves garlic
• 2 green onions
• 4 dried chilies (optional)
• 2 star anise
• 2 bay leaves
• ¼ cup light soy sauce
• ¼ cup dark soy sauce
• 2 tbsp rock sugar
• 1 cup chopped shiitake mushrooms
• ½ cup Shaoxing wine (optional)
• ½ tsp white pepper
• 3 cups water
• 8 hard-boiled eggs (optional, but so good!)

Directions

• Cut the pork belly into small pieces and brown it in a pot with a little oil.
• Add garlic and ginger and continue cooking until fragrant and the pork starts releasing its fat.
• Stir in the light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, spices, rock sugar, Shaoxing wine, fried shallots and water.
• Bring everything to a boil, then add the mushrooms and green onions.
• Turn the heat down and let it simmer for about 30 minutes.
• Add the hard-boiled eggs and simmer for another 30 minutes so they soak up all that delicious sauce.
• Spoon everything over freshly steamed rice and enjoy!

Rich, savory braised pork belly over hot rice with a braised egg. From Miko Wang on Instagram.