Sticky Pork Belly with Pineapple and Soy Sauce

This braised sticky pork belly recipe is sweet, sour, salty and spicy and all ways around my idea of indulgent comfort food.

Pineapple and Pork!

You will find pineapple appearing in all sorts of savoury recipes here on Krumpli. Although I must point out that it will never appear on Pizza… You know, because that is just dirty!

It is particularly good with pork, whether that be my sweet and sour pork chops or my pork and pineapple filled lettuce wraps.

This recipe features wonderfull fatty pork belly and uses pretty classic Chinese techniques.

It combines them with very Western flavour combinations.

So essentially pretty classic Chinese techniques and full-on sweet and sour takeaway flavours.

Why Cook Pork Twice?

The twice cooked pork method is pretty common in Chinese food, particularly with pork belly.

It is often said that this is to remove impurities from the meat… Which sounds, let’s face it frightening!

However, by impurities, it means pulling off some of the protein and blood deposits.

These form a “foam” or “scum” on the water that we use in the initial cooking phase. You can see this in my video!

It is not bad for you, it is just what it is. However, by cooking twice you are removing it and not putting this into the braising liquid.

This leads to a crystal clear shiny coating on you braised pork belly.

I also personally think that it adds to the texture, adding to that beautiful gelatinous feel of the fat and skin.

Oh yeah, if that ain’t your scene then this really is not a recipe for you!

Ingredient Advice!

The first thing to mention is soy sauce, they are not all the same.

This recipe uses light soy sauce and not dark soy sauce, whatever you do, do not mix them up.

Also, all soy has very different salt levels. Get to know your brand and how salty it is and use your experience to amend as necessary.

For the record, I use Pearl River Bridge.

Next Chinkiang vinegar, please try and find it because it really cannot be replaced by anything else.

It is a black Chinese rice vinegar that has a less astringent sourness. This helps mellow out that sweet and sour vibe with a lovely earthiness.

If you absolutely must then you can use rice wine vinegar, this has a much “sharper” flavour. This results in a very different dish, not unpleasant, just different.

Vinegar lasts for such a long time there is no need to worry about shelf life. Most importantly, I use it here a lot so it will keep you coming back teehee.

Finally pineapple, you will have plenty leftover! As a result, I would like to helpfully suggest my pineapple salsa or if you want to do something unusual this retro chicken and pineapple curry to use it up.

As for sides, I usually go for plain boiled rice.

But it would work well with stir fried broccoli or an asparagus stir fry.

This quickly cooked Asian Cabbage recipe would also be a good option.