Mains Collection: Braised five-spice pork belly - such a winter comfort food!

The hardest part about living in Wagga Wagga, regional NSW is the lack of authentic asian cuisines.  Hence, since moving here, I have learn to cook lots of food I craved from scratch, something I never thought possible.  Bought a decent piece of pork belly over the weekend and was trying to think of how to cook it without too much fuss.  Remembered I had this book that had braised five-spice pork belly...remembered this dish as one of my favourite while growing up.  The dish always had hard boil eggs in them and sometimes fried tofu.  The recipe however didn't have them.  Although the case, it was still good and felt so warming eating them in cold winter days!  Enjoy the recipe below:

(Recipe from "Asian Cook"book by Terry Tan)
Ingredients:
2 tbsp oil
1 tbsp sugar
500 g pork belly, sliced
5 tbsp dark soy sauce
2 tsp five-spice powder
1 litre water
1 tsp salt

Method:

1) Heat the oil in the work and add the sugar.  Cook until the sugar caramelises and turns light brown, then add the pork slices and turn them in the mixture until they are well coated.

2) Add the soy sauce, five-spice powder, water and salt.  Cover and cook gently over a low heat for 40 minutes, turning once or twice during braising.  Top up with more water if necessary.

3) Adjust the seasoning by adding extra soy sauce to taste, then serve warm with rice.

(Optional:  You can add hardboil eggs if you like.  Add them into the dish 15 minutes before it is ready or until the white part of the egg turns brown.)

Enjoy!