Red braised pork belly, or ''hong shao rou'' (), is a classic

pork Pork is the culinary name for the meat of the pig (''Sus domesticus''). It is the most commonly consumed meat worldwide, with evidence of pig animal husbandry, husbandry dating back to 8000–9000 BCE. Pork is eaten both freshly cooke ...

dish from

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

, red-cooked using

pork belly Pork belly or belly pork is a boneless, fatty Primal cut, cut of pork from the Abdomen, belly of a pig. Pork belly is particularly popular in American cuisine, American, British cuisine, British, Swedish cuisine, Swedish, Danish cuisine, Danish, ...

and a combination of

ginger Ginger (''Zingiber officinale'') is a flowering plant whose rhizome, ginger root or ginger, is widely used as a spice and a folk medicine. It is an herbaceous perennial that grows annual pseudostems (false stems made of the rolled bases of l ...

garlic Garlic (''Allium sativum'') is a species of bulbous flowering plants in the genus '' Allium''. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, chives, Welsh onion, and Chinese onion. Garlic is native to central and south Asia, str ...

, aromatic

spice In the culinary arts, a spice is any seed, fruit, root, Bark (botany), bark, or other plant substance in a form primarily used for flavoring or coloring food. Spices are distinguished from herbs, which are the leaves, flowers, or stems of pl ...

s, chilis,

sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose Glucose is a sugar with the Chemical formula#Molecular formula, molecul ...

star anise ''Illicium verum'' (star anise or badian, Chinese star anise, star anise seed, star aniseed and star of anise) is a medium-sized evergreen tree native to South China and northeast Vietnam. Its star-shaped pericarps harvested just before ripen ...

, light and dark soy sauce, and

rice wine Rice wine is an alcoholic beverage fermentation, fermented from rice, traditionally consumed in East Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia, where rice is a quintessential staple crop. Rice wine is made by the fermentation of rice starch, during wh ...

. The pork belly is cooked until the fat and skin are gelatinous, soft, and melt easily in the mouth, while the sauce is usually thick, sweet and fairly sticky. The dish has a melt-in-the-mouth texture that is formed as a result of a long braising process, during which the liquid reduces and becomes thick. It is generally served with steamed rice and dark green vegetables, often over holidays. The dish is often prepared with hard-boiled chicken eggs or

vegetables Vegetables are edible parts of plants that are consumed by humans or other animals as food. This original meaning is still commonly used, and is applied to plants collectively to refer to all edible plant matter, including flowers, fruits, ...

, which are used to soak up the juices from the recipe. Many Chinese provinces have slightly different variations, but the Hunanese version, often called "Mao's family style red braised pork" (), is often said to have been one of

Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; traditionally Romanization of Chinese, romanised as Mao Tse-tung. (26December 18939September 1976) was a Chinese politician, revolutionary, and political theorist who founded the People's Republic of China (PRC) in ...

's favorite dishes, and is served at the many Hunan restaurants across China specializing in so called "Mao-style cuisine". The popularity of the dish has led the Hunan provincial government to codify the recipe of the dish, in particular deciding that only meat of the celebrated Ningxiang breed of pig should be used in authentic ''hong shao rou''. The Shanghai-style ''hong shao rou'' () is another well-known variation, characterized by a sweeter and glossier sauce due to a higher proportion of rock sugar and a more liberal use of Shaoxing wine.

References

{{Hunan cuisine Hunan cuisine Chinese pork dishes

See also

References