Chapter 347 - 147: A Foolproof Braised Pork Belly

Chapter 347: Chapter 147: A Foolproof Braised Pork Belly

"Is it possible... we could make braised pork belly in multiple flavors?"

This was the most beautiful sound Su Chen had ever heard come out of Fang Chang’s mouth.

"You can actually say something useful?"

"Hey..." Fang Chang said, tugging a lock of hair at the back of his head. "What do you mean, ’something useful’? Was everything I said before just nonsense?"

Seeing Zhang Heping and Su Chen nod at the same time, Fang Chang finally understood the meaning of the phrase: "bringing humiliation upon oneself."

"Fang Chang has a point. Why can’t we make braised pork belly in multiple flavors?"

Su Chen looked at Zhang Heping. "We’re actually trapped by a certain mindset. You’re used to working in restaurants, so you’re still using that restaurant mentality."

Zhang Heping nodded.

Su Chen continued, "Up on the 19th floor, I do more custom orders, so I use a customized approach."

In other words, the model where the customer makes a request, and Delicious fulfills it.

"Our goal right now is to run a food stall. In that case... making multiple flavors really might be the best option!"

And just like that, Zhang Heping’s "restaurant model" combined with Fang Chang’s "multiple flavor options" had fortuitously helped Su Chen solve his initial problem.

"Alright, Old Er. Go make a portion of braised pork belly for Fang Chang. Oh, right, put the rest of the meat in the fridge at -4°C. No need to freeze it."

After saying that, Su Chen excitedly climbed the stairs back to the 19th floor. He wasn’t sure if the recent renovations were any good, but one thing was for sure: he’d definitely gotten a good workout.

Su Chen climbed from the 2nd floor all the way to the 19th in one go, without even getting winded.

’Maybe I should just shut down the elevator in the future. It would save money and force the employees to exercise!’

Su Chen silently filed that thought away, then returned to his office and settled into his beloved recliner.

He focused his mind, and a moment later, he appeared in the practice room.

’No matter what, if I want to make the braised pork belly a home-style dish, I need to simplify the process as much as possible.’

’Achieve the best results with the simplest methods.’

While pondering the recipe, Su Chen also considered that He Shuting could totally do a special episode on this home-style cooking series. It would save her hundreds of thousands of fans from just staring at her black stockings on their phones all day.

’They should learn to cook, too. How else will they get proper nutrition?’

"Ingredients: Pork belly, lower cut."

Simple, pure, no side dishes needed. After that, just some simple seasonings.

He summoned all the items.

Su Chen wondered, ’Why is it always necessary to sear the pork belly skin on the bottom of the wok before cooking?’

’Its only purpose is to make it easier to remove stray hairs and clean out the impurities in the pores of the skin.’

’Fortunately, the freshly butchered lower-cut pork belly from Fang Chang makes this step completely unnecessary. The processor already did a very clean job—that thirty percent markup over market price wasn’t for nothing!’

And another thing...

’Why do most braised pork belly recipes call for blanching the meat to set its shape, then boiling it until it’s seventy or eighty percent cooked before seasoning and braising?’

Su Chen admitted to himself that his culinary skills weren’t exactly top-tier, and his understanding of ingredients and cooking techniques wasn’t first-class either, but he still knew a thing or two.

This was one question that Su Chen had never been able to figure out, from the time he started streaming until now.

Wouldn’t the flavor be better if you just cut the meat into small pieces and cooked it directly?

"I’ll change it. I have to change it and see what happens!"

After washing the skin-on pork belly, he cut it directly into 2.5-centimeter cubes. To make the cubes look neater, Su Chen first trimmed the four edges of the slab to even them out before he began dicing.

’Modern people don’t lack for greasy food. In fact, the main reason a dish like braised pork belly has declined in popularity is that the sight of those three layers of fat is enough to turn a lot of people off.’

’He couldn’t speak for everyone, but someone like He Shuting wouldn’t be caught dead eating this stuff!’

Even Su Chen himself would feel overwhelmed after just two or three pieces. It was really the older generation, people from Zhang Heping’s time, who could really pack it away. Some of them could mix it with rice and polish off two or three jin of meat without breaking a sweat!

After dicing the meat, he added a very small amount of oil to the wok, then threw in a few star anise and a cinnamon stick, stir-frying them until they released their fragrance.

Immediately after, he placed the diced pork belly into the wok and began to render it over low heat.

He didn’t add any seasonings at this stage. It was just a dry wok over low, slow heat, where he gradually rendered the diced pork.

You could see that under the low flame, the pieces of meat, which had stuck to the wok a bit at first, gradually stopped sticking. And the bottom of the wok, which originally had only a tiny amount of oil, was now gradually filling with rendered fat.

’So, making pork belly actually has pretty high requirements for the ingredients.’

The freshly butchered pork belly from Fang Chang didn’t need any pre-processing at all; stir-frying it directly with star anise and cinnamon was enough.

But if it had been frozen in a cold storage unit for a while, you’d have to add scallion, ginger, and cooking wine and then blanch it.

As for the heat control, Su Chen consistently used a low flame. This kept the temperature at the bottom of the wok from getting too high, maintaining it at a level that would render the fat from the pork belly without charring the surface of the meat.

This step took a long time.

Only when the layers of fat in the pork belly began to look slightly translucent did Su Chen push the meat to the sides of the wok, revealing a large amount of rendered lard in the center.

He placed the chopped scallion and ginger in the middle, stir-frying them in the rendered lard to release their aroma.

This step was particularly nuanced.

Previously, while cooking, Su Chen had come up with a few concepts, namely pre-seasoning, mid-cooking seasoning, and post-cooking seasoning. This step was an example of mid-cooking seasoning.

The scallion, ginger, star anise, and cinnamon would allow the rendered lard to absorb a rich, complex fragrance. Using this infused oil to then pan-fry the pork belly would drive that complex fragrance deep into the meat!