Caramelised Belly Pork

You can’t beat a nice bit of belly pork! Easy 10/10 from me and the family.

Ingredients

Serves 4 when served with rice or mashed potatoes.

  • 750g belly pork
  • 30ml vegetable oil
  • 12 shallots chopped finely or a large onion
  • 2 cloves of garlic or 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder
  • 50ml soy sauce (low salt is best, the dish is quite salty)
  • 135g brown sugar
  • 3 star anise (2 if people aren’t familiar with the flavour)
  • 15g or 4 1/2 teaspoons Chinese 5 spice powder
  • 25ml fish sauce
  • 60ml water – optional, see below

Method

  1. Brown the belly pork in a frying pan.
  2. Soften the onion or shallots in the frying pan, slightly brown.
  3. Add the belly pork, shallots / onion and the rest of the ingredients to the slow cooker pot coating the meat as you do. Make sure you mix it enough to dissolve the sugar which will prevent it from burning.
  4. Cover and cook on low for 6 to 7 hours or high for 4.

Eat with mashed potato or rice.

Options

Optional 1: Don’t add the water, at the end of cooking place everything on a tray and reduce the sauce in the oven until sticky. This is not worth the effort in my option.

Option 2: Add the water to create a little more sauce which can be mixed with the rice. This also makes the dish slightly easier to cook in larger slow cookers as it’s less likely to burn.