Meltingly Tender Simmered Pork Belly Cubes in a Rice Cooker

Name: Meltingly Tender Simmered Pork Belly Cubes in a Rice Cooker
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 500 grams Pork belly (block); 50 ml each Sake and soy sauce; 30 ml Mirin; 300 ml Water; 4 tbsp Sugar

cookpad.japan @cookpad_jp

Pressure cookers are heavy seem difficult to use, but I wanted to make tender, sauce-rich pork belly cubes, so I tried making them in my rice cooker.
You can set the timer so that they're ready at dinner time, so it's easy! But you do have to warm up precooked rice in the microwave to eat with the pork.

The meat will shrink quite a bit while cooking.
To prevent the meat from falling apart and to minimize shrinkage, brown the surface of the pork belly block first before cutting it into cubes.
I cut the block into 8 pieces in the photos, but 6 pieces may be better. For 4 servings. Recipe by Shijimi24

cookpad.japan @cookpad_jp

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Ingredients

4 servings

500 gramsPork belly (block)
50 mleach Sake and soy sauce
30 mlMirin
300 mlWater
4 tbspSugar

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Steps

1

I used 500 g of pork. Brown the surface of the block of meat without oil as oil will render out. (You just need to brown the surface, not cook it through.)
2

The block of pork belly will shrink. (60 ml of fat came out!) Wipe out the fat from the pan, and add water (not listed) up to half the height of the pork belly block.
3

Boil the pork with the skin side down (the fat side) for about 5 minutes after the water comes to a boil. Don't boil it any longer. If it's not too much of a bother, add a handful of uncooked rice to the water.
4

Cut up the parboiled pork belly block, and put it in the bowl of the rice cooker with the flavoring ingredients. In our 5 cup capacity rice cooker, I can fit in up to 1 kg of meat. Switch the cooker on!
5

Cook the pork belly using the regular rice cooking setting. Done! It's so meltingly tender when it's piping hot!
6

I used bok choy to add color to the dish. I boiled it separately to bring out the bright green color. Drain and squeeze it out, and put on the serving plates.
7

You could remove the fat before cooking if you prefer (I don't).
8

The leftover simmering liquid is very tasty, so don't throw it out! Try it in "Simmered Okara with Canned Fish".