Soya Sauce Pork

200g pork belly
400g pork shoulder/pork cheek
Half a stick of cinnamon
4 cloves -- like the spice, see below for the garlic
6 cloves of garlic
100ml of best quality Thai or Chinese light soy
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp Chinese rice wine
1/2 tbsp sugar
500ml chicken or pork broth

Cut all meat into 2 inch cubes. Pork cheeks naturally come in the right size.

Bring a pot of water to boil with a spoonful each of salt and rice wine. Put the meat in, and simmer for 15 minutes. Drain. Throw away the water.

Put all the ingredients into a pot. The liquid should at least cover the meat. Cover with foil. Put in oven (no fan) at 130C for 4-6 hours, or even overnight.

Serve with rice.

Notes:

You can skip the pork belly, but I would encourage you to use a cut with a good amount of fat and collagen to break down. It gives the sauce an unctuousness that is out of this world good. If you want to freeze portions, I would definitely encourage you to keep the fat because I find it freezes better that way.

There is a version of this with chicken, but I have never made it. I’m not sure that beef would have the right flavor either.

After the meat is done cooking, you can add potatoes (scrub, skin off, and cut into big chunks) and hard boiled eggs (after shelling of course). My mother often adds tofu puffs too.

You can use less liquid. But I often pour off some of the sauce and freeze. I use it in stir fries in place of soy sauce and chicken stock, other stews (it’s like my secret mother sauce) and it’s also really good if you cook some meat balls or mince in it and serve with rice.

You can also use water instead. This will work best if you pack the meat in really tightly into a small pot and cover it really tightly, so the meat makes it’s ‘own’ broth as you stew.

The best soy sauce I can get to easily is Thai, and is called Healthy Boy.

Do not skip the bit of 1/4 tsp of salt. I have done that and you do actually notice the lack.