Hubei-style steamed rice powder pork belly (fenzhengrou)
Chinese Cooking Demystified · ♥ 1.6K likes · 60.5K views · 5 min video
Read about pork belly in the BrightCulinary Book
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Ingredients
Method
Techniques
- 550 g pork belly
Halve the pork belly and slice into half-centimetre pieces; put in a bowl.
- 1 tbsp nan ru, red fermented tofu
- 1 tbsp red fermented tofu juice
- 1 tbsp tian mian jiang, sweet bean paste
- ½ tbsp light soy sauce
- ½ tbsp liaojiu aka Shaoxing wine
- ½ tbsp sugar
- ½ tsp salt
Add red fermented tofu (one tablespoon with a piece, one of the juice), sweet bean paste, light soy sauce, Shaoxing wine, sugar and salt.
- 2 inch ginger
- 1 whole leek
- 1 tbsp Sichuan peppercorns
- 1 cup hot boiled water
For the leek ginger peppercorn water: steep sliced ginger, leek sections and Sichuan peppercorns in about a cup of hot boiled water for 10 minutes.
- 3 tbsp leek ginger peppercorn water
Add 3 tablespoons of the infused water to the pork, mix about a minute and marinate at least 30 minutes.
- 100 g jasmine rice
- 3 whole bay leaves
- 2 whole star anise
- 1 whole cinnamon stick
Toast the jasmine rice in a wok with bay leaves, star anise and cracked cinnamon over medium-low heat, keeping it moving so it does not burn, about 8 minutes until golden brown; remove the spices.
- 2 whole purple sweet potatoes
Pulse in a blender about 90 seconds to a coarse powder, not too fine.
- 6 tbsp rice powder
- 4 tbsp leek ginger peppercorn water
Mix 6 tablespoons of rice powder and 4 tablespoons of the infused water into the pork for a minute or two; rest 5 minutes.
Stack the pork in a rounded bowl with the skin all facing the same way, packing it in neatly; lay the sweet potato slices over the top and cover with cheesecloth.
Packing the bowl and flipping onto the steamer
Place a steamer snugly over the bowl and flip; keep the bowl over the pork, with the lid resting on top to stop condensation dripping in.
- 1 pint hot boiled water
Set the steamer in a wok of bubbling water, cover and seal with wet towels; steam 90 minutes over a medium-high flame, adding about a pint of hot boiled water every 30 minutes.