How To Make Lu Rou Fan, Taiwanese Pork Over Rice

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-My name is Eric Sze.

I'm the chef-owner of 886 in the East Village

and wenwen in Greenpoint.

Today, I'll be making lu rou fan,

which is a Taiwanese pretty traditional

braised pork belly over rice dish.

My take is not super traditional,

so don't get pissed if it's not how your mom makes it.

The first thing's first, we're gonna blanch our pork belly.

We drop it in the water.

So the purpose of blanching the pork belly

is to keep its shape,

as well as get rid of any impurities, et cetera.

So the pork belly, we're gonna simmer about 30 minutes.

We're going to make the dashi.

So here is some kombu dried.

Pop it right in.

Now we're gonna add dried shiitake mushrooms.

You can rinse them if you want, just like the kombu,

but I kind of like to just throw it in there.

So now that this is going,

everything is softened a little bit.

Gonna put a little lid on.

So now we're gonna make the pickled cucumbers,

which is gonna be the garnish for the dish.

This dish was invented in Taiwan

during the Japanese colonialism era.

Colonialism, imperialism? Same thing, right?

During that time, the sauce itself was invented

as a garnish for different things like over rice,

over noodles.

Salt.

We're going to toss this guy.

It softens the vegetable,

and it allows it to soak up much more flavor.

And you leave it for about 15 minutes or so,

just so the water comes out.

Now we're going to make the brine.