All Chinese families must have a Tao You Bak recipe of their own. It's especially useful when you're in a foreign country and just can't get your hands on the traditional pork belly dish that your mum cooked for you when you were little.
So, let's get started...
Step 1: Marinate (min. 30 mins before cooking begins) 2kg of Pork Belly (uncut slabs) with salt, pepper, oyster sauce (optional), 5 pieces of anistars, 5 cardamoms, a pinch of peppercorns and a stick of cinnamon.
Step 2: Boil 5-6 rice bowls of water in a pot. Add carrot, tomatoes, ginger, and/or vegetables of your choice, which you will remove once the flavour builds in the soup. Add groundnuts too (optional), but only if you fancy them. And/or mushrooms for extra flavour.
Step 3: Remove all the spices used as marinate and place them into the boiling vegetable soup plus 5 tablespoons of premium light soy sauce.
Step 4: Pan sear marinated pork belly slabs till golden brown on the skin. This helps to retain the flavour.
Steps 5: Place pan-seared pork belly into the pot of boiling soup, along with 5 cloves of garlic (whole) and 5 tablespoons of caramalised soy sauce – for 50 mins if you're using a pressure cooker, then leave for another 30 mins. (The sauce should just cover the slabs of pork belly). For claypots, cook on slow fire for an hour and a half or less, depending on how soft you like your Tao You Bak.
Step 6: Remove the slabs of pork belly, and it should look something like this :P
Step 7: Cut to chunks or thin slices; serve with sauce and cut chili padi on the side.
