buta no kakuni, morimoto-style.

probably not the most auspicious post to ring in the new year of food blogging, considering i'm trying to lose weight/eat healthier, but cheeeese, look at it. 'tis beaaaaauuuuutiful, no? buta no kakuni, pork belly braised in sake and a little bit of soy sauce, flavoured with just a tiny bit of sugar and star anise, served on brown rice congee infused with spring onion oil and flavoured with a bit of dried scallop. this was modified from a recipe by masaharu morimoto from his book, "morimoto: the new art of japanese cooking." someone rather kindly mailed a copy of the book to me and like, a whole lot of other bloggers. i generally say no to the freebies because i know i'll never review them, but i heart the morimoto-san, and at the time i was broke and thought i was saving up for something, so why not? but now i'm not saving, still broke, still no review. sorry dk books person! i officially cannot be trusted with your merchandise. however, the book is lovely and i've cooked a bunch of deelish things from it.

n. e. how.

this was actually one of the last recipes i thought i'd cook from the book, but when i saw maki's lovely more traditional version of the pork dish, i really wanted to try it. she and kirk both explain there are chinese cuisine connections to the dish, as does humba, the filipino version of this dish. i haven't had humba in awhile, but i always remembered my family's version to be flavoured with star anise and ginger; morimoto-san's recipe calls for neither, but the thing i love the most about the pork is that hint of spiciness, especially from the anise, so i added two whole star anise to the final braising liquid. also, i used brown rice in morimoto-san's congee recipe instead of the usual white; the result was more texture and flavour to play against the dried scallop and spring onion oil.

this recipe is not difficult at all, but some of the ingredients can be tricky to find, and it requires a good amount of time and patience. there is an initial eight hour simmer which renders out the majority of fat from the pork, then an overnight chilling before returning it to simmer in braising liquids for an additional 2 hours. if you do the first part in a slow cooker, then chuck it in the fridge whilst at work or asleep, it's actually quite uncomplicated. the melt-in-your mouth texture and exquisite flavours make it worth the work.

funnily enough, this was the first recipe that aun and s from the wonderful chubby hubby decided to try. they've already proclaimed the recipe a favourite, so maybe you will too.