Buta no Kakuni

Buta no Kakuni (Day 1) Sorry I forgot to tell you this earlier… My bronchitis is completely cured now! My cough was almost gone on Sunday and I posted about it on my another blog, but I forgot to officially announce it here and thank all the readers who cared about me. So, dear readers, thank you for your kind concern. * HUG * Now, back to the buta no kakuni I made at the end of the Golden Week... BTW, I wonder what the best English translation of “buta no kakuni” would be. The dish was called “braised pork belly” on a couple of Japanese websites, but I’m not sure if that is the best translation. Tell me -- what’s the difference between braising and simmering? When you heat pork cubes like these over and over in the soup that is just enough to cover them even for a couple of days until the meat becomes really tender, is it braising or simmering? Anyway, here's a recipe that seems to be one of the common ways to make buta no kakuni. Though I did not follow this recipe exactly, I guess it would give you the general idea of how this dish is made, if you are interested. What I did differently was that I browned the pork cubes AFTER pre-boiling them with green onion and ginger because I read on a Japanese site that it would help removing the fat more effectively. Then I rinsed the meat thoroughly with water, and put it in the slow-cooker with all the liquid seasonings and 2 boiled eggs. About the amount of the liquid seasonings... I kept tasting the soup and adding a little of this and that, so it must have been quite different from the recipe. On the day one, the pork tasted OK but was not amazingly tender or anything. But in the evening of day 2, after repeated heating and cooling, it was sooooooo soft… I was able to cut the meat with only a gentle touch with chopsticks. MMmmmmm… Fatty, greasy … but oh so good … A guilty pleasure, indeed. ;P Categories: Japanese