Phew, after the past 2 weeks I’ve had, some comfort food is exactly what I needed! Comfort food for me is something that makes me happy, is most likely bad for you, and oh soooooooo good! I dug into my childhood memories again for something, and came up with Chinese braised pork belly…something my parents would make when I was younger. It became less frequent as I got older cause my mom got on a health kick and lets face it, pork belly braising in soy sauce is not the most healthiest thing.

Some standard rice and bok choy to go with the meal. Yum! Oh, and some pickled cucumbers, just in a little rice vinegar and sesame oil.

A fairly simple dish, I chop up the meat, sear it a bit, and then put everything together and let it simmer for like 3 hours (I think you would be safe at 2-2.5 hours).

1 lb Pork Belly, chopped into about 1 inch pieces

I also add some Boston butt, chopped up, to the mix here so it’s not just pork belly that I’m eating

dark and light soy

Chinese cooking wine

5-6 star anise

1-2 in. ginger

5-6 cloves garlic

3 stalks scallions

about a golf ball sized sugar rock

water to cover

If you want, you can scoop out 2 cups of the broth/sauce when you are almost done and cook it down with some corn starch/flour to make a thicker sauce. I did that above. Totally worth it.