Date: Aug 2, 2021

Let’s try to cook this Taiwan Braised Pork Rice today. Yummy yummy!!!

Taiwan braised Pork rice.

And today, we are not going to use pots and stove. Today, we going to use Hitachi Microwave oven to cook it. I bought this since I moved to my new place here 2 years ago. And I have not truely using it to cook any real dish with it. So, in this new series of my blog entries, I will share my thoughts and the recipe I used to cook using the Hitachi Microwave Oven.

This Hitachi Microwave oven is amazing. It can cook a lot of things. And of course, my Taiwan Braised Pork rice is NOT in this recipe cum user manual. So, we have to choose one that is closest to what we want to cook.

Since we are braising our pork, so, let’s use this Simmered/Boil/Soup – Braised Meat & Potato recipe function to cook. And it should do the trick. I will share with you all the ingredients and steps and thought in the following paragraph.

Just in case, you want to see the whole page of this Braised Meat & Potato recipe. Here you go…

OK, let’s do it!

Ingredients

1. Pork Belly (about 600g)
2. Garlic (about 3-4 cloves, may be 30-40g)
3. Ginger (few pieces, about 30g)
4. Rock Suger (white or brown is fine, about 45g, may be about 6-8 pieces)
5. Pepper (about 3g, depends on your taste)
6. Bay Leaves (3-5 pieces)
7. Dark Soya Sauce (about 60ml)
8. Light Soya Sauce (about 60ml)
9. Chinese Cooking Wine (those white one, not Shao Shing Cooking wine, about 100ml)
10. Water (about 450-500ml)

That’s all the ingridients. Let’s check out the preparation.

Pork Belly. 600g. Looks a lot. But after you cook, it shrinked.

First cut into strips.

From strips, you cut into cube or rectangular shape.

Of course, using the cleaver to cut is the best. hahaha Based on the result of this cooking experience, my meat is still a bit big in size per cube or rectangular. If can, cut it or dice it smaller.

Next you will need to dice some garlic. Using Cleaver again. As fine as possible.

Tada…. Garlic.

Next, cut a few slices of ginger. Depends on how strong you like. So, this is to my taste.

You will need white pepper. I used my Sarawak White Pepper.

We need some bay leaves also.

A few pieces of bay leaves will do.

We need 100ml of white chinese cooking wine. You can add more if wanted too.

The light soya sauce. This particular brand is from Setiawan. And I just bought more from Shoppee. This is the brand of soya sauce my son likes. About 60ml will do.

I like to use this dark soya sauce. This is for coloring purpose. Depends on how dark you want your braised pork. I guess 60ml is ok. This Boon Tong Kee one is a bit sweet too. I like. Based on the result of this cooking experience, I learned to use lesser next time to make the color not so dark.

Water about 450-500ml. It is one cup (my cup).

Oh ya, rock sugar.

Here you go… my ingredients. All prepared.

And today, we are not going to use i-Cook cookware or stove or pans, etc…

We are going to use this Hitachi Microwave Oven.

If you have only plain Microwave, the, you have to google abit how to braise the meat, i.e. what power, for how long, variable power settings?

Because I used this Hitachi MRO-NBK5000E, it has a Auto cook function that special do Braise meat and potatoe. So, later we going to use that function and leave it for braising.

As long as it is a smart mircowave oven, I am sure it comes with the Braise meat function. So, you just need to

Ok, Let’s do it. The cooking method and process.

STEP 1. Put all the diced pork belly meat into a micrawaveable bowl (which has a lid, we will need to use the lid later). Place it inside the Microwave Oven.

We need to set to Microwave 600W and for 10min. press START to start cooking.

Take note, we will need to stir the meat ever 2min during this initial 10min cooking.

STEP 2. When the microwave counter count down passed the 8th minute, OPEN the microwave oven door. (ya, it will auto pause). No need exactly on the dot ya…

Use a pair of chop stick to stir. It has slightly cook on the top layer. So, you will need to scope or stir the bottom one to the top.

CLOSE the door, and press Continue cooking.

STEP 3. When it passed the 6th minutes, Open the door, and stir it some more.

Make sure you bring the bottom layer meats to the top.

Like this. You will see half white color (cooked) and some still raw meat color. Close the door and hit continue to cook.

STEP 4. We need to wait until it count down to the 4th minute. We will need to add the garlic and the ginger into the meat bowl.

OK, 4min left. So, let’s open the door.

Add the garlic.

Add the ginger.

And stir stir stir. As you can see, it is almost cook (turn white). So, you stir the ginger and garlic evenly.

Close the door, and let it run for remaining 4min. Until the 10min cooking is completed. (You may stir on the 2nd minute count down, but for me, nay…

STEP 5. OK, you take the bowl out and add rock sugar.

Again, stir the meat and rock sugar evenly. As you can see after the initial 10min cooking all the meat turn white outside.

Now, you set the microwave cooking at 600W for 3-min. Press Start. This is where we slowly cook furthur the meat and add the ingredients slowly.

STEP 6. After the previous 3min cooking is completed, open the door. The meat color is slowly turning into fully cook color. hahaha this is where you need to add the soya sauce (both light and dark).

Let’s add both light and dark soya sauce. This is where I ask my helper to help me here. because I one hand carry iPhone camera to video. haha

Oh dear, the thick thick dark soya sauce is sticked onto the bowl. So, use a spoon to scape it out into the cooking bowl.

And give it a good stir.

That is how it looks like.

Now, cook for another 3-min at 600W.

STEP 7. This is the 2nd last step. As you may have guessed, we dump all other ingredient inside here.

Add the pepper, follow by the bay leaves, then the Chinese white cooking wine, and lastly water. Hmm… my cooking bowl is so small, I scare the water is too much, so I left out roughly 50ml of water. hahaha Later I found out that it is not necessary, just dump all water inside. It will evaporate mostly away.

You may ask, why no cinnimon stick, or anise *. Well, it is to your liking la. My son Kay don’t like a certain taste, so I did not add them in.

Before you place the cooking bowl back, this is how it looks like. Now, we meed to do our last microwave 600W cooking.

This time, set it to 600W for 6-minutes. And no need to open during this last 6-minuite of microwave cooking before we do the braising.

STEP 8. Ding. Open the door. And let’s stir it and taste it. Wow, the taste is nice. Really nice. It smell nice too.

Put the cooking bowl back into the Microwave Oven, let’s do the braising. To braise it, we need to select Auto 101. Should be the same although it is braising the beef instea of pork. hahaha

For me, I will use the old school method. Navigate thru the menu.

1. Select “Recipe”
2. Select “Cooking Method”
3. Press “Next” to go to page 2/2
4. Select “Simmered Boil/Soup”
5. Select “Braised Meat & Potato”
6. We have ceramic tray inside, so Microwave Auto detects it. Very clever huh.
7. Because we are not STEAMING anything, so, make sure the WATER TANK is empty.
8. Doneness is at MID. I think it is ok.
9. Press START.
10. Wow, it actually will measuring the weight of the ?? something… No idea what its doing..
11. And it actually determine to cook for 57-minutes.

OK. We need to put the cover or lid onto the cooking bowl later after 20min. So, make sure you set a timer to remind yourself.

STEP 9. After braising it for 20-minutes. Open the microwave door.

See… the water evaporate quite a bit. That is why we need to put the lid over the cooking bowl.

This is where I found that my dark soya sauce is REALLY dark. So next time, I just put lesser is enough. haha

As you can see, without the cover, the microwave interior is alread a mess. hahahahahahahaha

Well, if you don’t create a mess, it is not cooking lor…

OK, let’s continue cooking. Now need to stir anymore. Just let it simmer or braise for the remaining 36 minutes.

That’s all folks. It is time.

And Let’s reveal it. Wow, look at the cover.

Brighter light see better. Luckily we cover it.

Let’s uncover it. You see the layer of pork lard (pork oil). Wahahaha.. wait.. the meat looks like it is not “soft” ya. Let’s taste it then we will know. By looking can’t tell yet.

See.. I am sure the fatty part is melt in your mouth. But the meat part… ? let’s eat it. And it is very soft. yeah! first time cooking Taiwan braised pork belly and it is great success.

This is how you eat it. One scope on top of the Japanese rice. Not too much sauce.

Let’s see it from another angle.

It tastes so good. Instantly melt in your mouth.

It goes well with Sunny side up eggs.

See, wow.

Jay’s loves it.

It is easy to make. My wife and Kay also says “Umpppph!”.

So, this is my first attempt to make Taiwan Braise Pork Rice. And my first time really using the Hitachi Microwave Oven to cook a meal.

And I am glad that my helper has also learned how to cook it. She will always refer to this blog entry to cook this dish.

Let’s recap. The cooking time is 10min + 3min + 3min + 6min + 57min = 79min. Plus all the preparing, I say, you can make this dish slighly under 2 hours. And you can do other things while preparing for this dish. Let microwave oven do the job for you.

Yeah!