Growing up, I always like Cantonese clay pot rice. If you go to dim sum, you will often find clay pot rice with an of assortment of toppings to choose from: fermented black bean with pork ribs, marinated chicken with mushrooms, minced meat with egg, and my favourite: Chinese cured meats. There’s something very comforting about that dish for me.

After getting a little experience with curing meats, I wanted to venture off into something nostalgic for me. I did a little digging, and most recipes were quite similar in ingredients and proportions. This one is pretty straightforward as well: Bring all the ingredients to a boil, then let cool before adding alcohol. Then, marinate the pork belly in the fridge for roughly 4-7 days. I suspect the duration will depend on the thickness of the belly, and how long it takes for the marinate to migrate. After that, we wipe the belly dry and hang it until the moisture loss is complete. I’m not sure why we add alcohol but it is quite common in Chinese cured meats, (more research to do moving forward!).

After a few weeks of hanging, we took the belly out of the curing fridge and vacuum sealed it. We have since tried it a few times by just adding it in the rice cooker and it was pretty delicious, everyone loved it. Of course, now we’ll need to spend a little money to get a nice clay pot to really make things complete.