>> Chinese Meat Recipes

Twice Cooked Pork Belly (Video)

This twice cooked pork belly dish is a very traditional and popular Chinese home cooking dish which I learnt from my parents. In Chinese it is called “Hui Guo Rou”, (回锅肉) , meaning the meat to be returned to the wok (to be cooked twice).

We usually use the pork belly for this dish, because belly has some fat but tastes much better than the lean meat. Plus, we like the belly with skin on. I was very disappointed when I saw some pork belly sold in the UK have the skin removed, disappointed.

Scoll down to see the video from my father's cooking, in which he cooked pork belly with green chillies.

Here is my version of his recipe. For me, the MUST have ingredients are: garlic (either leaf or cloves), sugar, soy sauce, chilli bean paste. But I saw my aunty in Sichuan cooking this dish, she did not use garlic instead using ginger. So you may try different ingredients to see what you like.

The bellies are first boiled then cut into thin slices. Afterwards, the sliced bellies are fried. The cooked bellies can be served alone or cooked with other vegetables.

Prep Time: 5 mins Cook Time: 15-20 mins

Ingredients:

200g pork belly (best with skin)
1 tbsp oil
salt (optional)
½ tsp sugar
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp Chinese chilli bean paste (豆瓣酱)
leek, cut to one inch long
2 garlic cloves

Chinese Twice Cooked Pork Belly Recipe Postcard
by ChinaMemo

Method for Chinese Twice Cooked Pork Belly

Prepare:

slice leek into the thin threads
chop garlic cloves

Cook:

boil water and add bellies to cook about 5 minutes. I don't cook it too long as it will be double cooked later on.
Take the cooked bellies out and cut the meat into thin slices. The reason to cut it into thin slice is because the meat will be easily get flavour, second, the fat will come out quicker. Plus, if you want the belly to be crispy, it is better to be thin as well.
Heat the frying pan until it is very hot. Add oil and wait till high heat. Add chopped garlic and chilli bean paste to fry until fragrant.
Add the sliced pork bellies to fry. How long you fry depending on your cooker temperature and whether you want the belly to be crispy.
Add sugar and light soy sauce. Add salt if you prefer. But normally it is no need if you add chilli bean paste which can be salty enough.
Fry bellies for about 3-5 minutes. Add the sliced leek (or green chilies as in the cooking video), fry about 3-4 minutes. Done. Serve hot.

Tips:

The time to fry the belly slices depends on what you prefer. If you prefer the belly to be bit crispy, you may fry it bit longer.

Frying chilli bean paste at beginning can bring a special flavour to the dish. But if you don't have this chilli bean paste, using soy sauce is fine.

You can watch the cooking video for this dish, which is also posted on my Youtube channel. It is one of the top viewed videos in my channel. You may subscribe to my channel to get the regular updates.