I made Alvin's Caramelised Pork Belly yesterday but unfortunately it wasn't a great hit. I've made quite a few pork belly recipes including Pork Adobo and Chairman Mao's Red Braised Pork with Water Chestnuts which are fantastic but this just didn't cut it. There was just too much brown sugar in this recipe for my liking and if I were to do it again I would caramelise the pork in a totally different way albeit a much safer way. You see, I had a slight problem with the step that you deep fry the pork pieces after simmering them. I thought that it was just a tad too dangerous as the oil splattered absolutely everywhere. The recipe did say, "...be careful oil will spit when pork is added..." but this was an understatement. It was like dodging missiles as every time I heard a pop sound I had to weave my entire body so that I wouldn't get wounded. Oil was spitting at every level imaginable and I did end up with a medium size blister on my right hand - the oil spat and sizzled as it took away layers of my skin in the seconds before I plunged my hand into cold water. By this time I was so fed up I ended up pouring cold oil into the wok, blanching the pork belly then popping the strained pork into the oven to brown. Afterwards, my kitchen floor was like an ice skating rink as one could easily slide from the oven to the sink without difficulty because there was so much grease on the floor - yuk! Thanks for this invention test Alvin as instead of invoking "Greed" from the seven deadly sins it invoked "Sloth" as the last thing I wanted to do was clean my entire kitchen.
Anyway, here are some of the shots that led to the end result, which by the way, did look pretty awesome on the plate - the finished dish not the raw pork!
Pork Belly disguised as Australian Pork Rashers.
And, how did I know it was Pork Belly... well, there was one tiny nipple positioned on top of one pork rasher.
Braising the pork with the spices.
Deep-fried pork pieces.
Crispy fried ginger.
Looks fantastic but greed turned to wrath as the kids decided that they didn't like it and mum turned into sloth coz she was sick of the mess in the kitchen. Not quite MasterChef presentation or to the standards of Donna Hay but good enough for a mum who was under the pressure test to plate up.
Mmmm, what to do with the leftovers.........
BTW, I've committed the utmost cardinal sin by buying pork rashers from Woolworths. Normally, I do all of my shopping at Coles but by chance today, Woolworths was the closest store nearest my local Asian grocery shop. I still reckon Coles is a winner over Woollies.
