How to Make AWESOME Braised PORK BELLY in a RICE COOKER! (红烧肉, 电饭锅)

Hey guys, it's Mike Chen. Welcome to my kitchen. I am so excited about this dish I'm about to share with you guys today for a couple of reasons. And before we get started I just want to give a shout out to the sponsor of this video, Blue Apron. I actually cook one of these Blue Apron meals so definitely stay tuned till the end of this video and see how that turned out. Anyway, like I mentioned, I am really excited about this dish for a couple of reasons. One is that this dish called Hong Shao Rou is one of my all-time favorite Chinese pork dishes. I think the reason I love it so much is because ever since I was a little kid I would go to my grandmother's for Chinese New Year and every single New Year she would make this dish and I always remembered it because this dish is fragrant, it's meaty, it's fatty, it's porky, it's delicious. And one particular memory really stuck in my mind because when I was a kid, I was kind of a picky eater. I didn't really like eating fatty, the fatty parts of meat. I only like eating lean meat and I remember seeing this dish for the first time. My grandma was sitting there, she was eating it and it looked so good because she really had a talent for making food look good. So she was sitting there eating it and I was of course very curious because well, it's food. Then she showed me the dish and I kind of made a face because it had a lot of fat in there but she convinced me to just try one piece and I was hooked. I remember it being salty, sweet, and extremely saucy and it goes perfectly with rice. And after that, every year when I would visit her, she would always make this dish for me and that's why it really holds a special place in my heart. Now the second reason I'm really excited about this dish today is because we're gonna do something different. Instead of cooking the Hong Shao Rou, instead of cooking this braised pork belly the traditional way, we're gonna cook it in a rice cooker. And I'm really excited to announce that this will be the first video in the rice cooker cooking series. Yup, that's right. We're gonna do a whole series of cooking videos utilizing the rice cooker, one of the most awesome innovative inventions of all time. In the history of great food innovation, it goes like this. Hot oil, hot pot, and the rice cooker. And in this series, I'm gonna show you guys that the rice cooker is not just for rice. Alright, let's get started with our Hong Shao Rou. Here's everything you need. 1 pound of pork belly and I really like the ones with the skin on because that's gonna give you some great gelatinous texture. Sugar, light and dark soy sauce, Chinese cooking wine, sesame oil, 5 star anise, 1 cinnamon stick, 4 thin slices of ginger, and if you wanna light this pig on fire, add some dried chili peppers. Some scallions, and of course, you're gonna need a rice cooker. Couple of optional ingredients you guys can add to this recipe. One is a potato and the other are boiled eggs. Like I said, this is completely optional. I like adding potatoes because this dish is very saucy. And I don't know about you, but I love saucy potatoes. We're gonna start by cutting our pork belly. We don't need to cut this into really small pieces. You do wanna cut it like this so you get some skin, fat, and lean meat in almost every single piece. And about an inch across is pretty good. After you chop the pork up, just put it into a pot of cold water. And we're just gonna bring this to a boil. And again, get rid of all the scum. Drain the scum because, well, it's scum. Nobody likes scum. And just set this aside for now. Separate the white and green parts of the scallion. Now let's make our sauce. Two teaspoons of sugar, two teaspoons of dark soy sauce. And this is really just for color, not for saltiness. Tablespoon of light soy sauce, two tablespoons of Chinese cooking wine, and a teaspoon of sesame oil. Give that a little mix. Now take our rice cooker, put in our ginger, the pork, our sauce, the star anise, cinnamon stick, and if you want, the chili peppers. Two and a half cups of water. Give that a nice mix. And let it cook. That's it. Once it's in the rice cooker, our job is pretty much done. How simple is that? Now you could just leave the whole thing in the rice cooker and wait for it to pop and then feast. But as this dish cooks, sometimes the sugar, the soy sauce, they sink to the bottom. So you wanna come by every 10 minutes and give that a nice stir until the rice cooker finishes cooking. Something else you can do while your pork belly is cooking is make some rice. And lucky for me, I have a spare rice cooker, you know, for all those rice emergencies. So I'm gonna put in some rice and when my pork belly is done cooking, my rice will be done as well. And if you're sitting at home wondering, why does this guy have like two rice cookers? Well, my question is, why do you not? Every home needs a backup rice cooker for all those rice emergencies. How beautiful does this look? And you can keep it in the rice cooker a little longer if you want a nice char on there. But you see what's happening here? The sugar is caramelizing over the pork and it's giving it such a beautiful, beautiful color. And that's one of the signatures of this dish is the brown color of the meat. I mean, just look at how pretty this is. Look how pretty that is. This is ready to eat. Look at that pork, just glistening. Do not leave any of that beautiful, beautiful sauce. Now take some of that green onion and just drop it on top as a garnish. And this is ready to eat. Look at that beautiful color. Look at the skin. That's gonna be super flavorful and gelatinous. Let me get a nice combination piece here. Skin, fat, and lean meat. Take some rice. Wow. Oh, my goodness. Fragrant, fatty, porky, juicy. You're everything I thought you'd be. Mm. I love this dish so much because at the end, when the sugar caramelizes and coats over the fatty pieces of pork, and when you bite into it, it's almost like biting into a porky lollipop. And you might not think porky lollipops taste good, but trust me, they taste good. Also, one warning about this dish. Never eat it on its own. This dish is meant to be with rice. It's like the sun and the moon, the yin and the yang, hot oil and noodle soup, porky-o and chewy rice. These things, they just balance each other. And that's what makes it so incredibly good. Trust me, rice will never be boring again as long as this thing is laying on top of it. And what I did with this recipe, I added chili peppers. Typically, this dish does not have any chili peppers, but with the chili peppers, oh my goodness. Personally, I feel like it's necessary because the pork is very fatty. The skin especially is very gelatinous. It absorbed all the soy sauce, so it's extremely savory. And then you add the chili in there, and I'm telling you, that makes everybody happy. It makes the pork happy. It makes the rice happy. It makes me happy. Ooh, let's take it up a notch. I made a fresh batch of hot oil. Look how delicious that is. And let's just drizzle that over the pork and rice. Look how beautiful that is. Spice level upgraded. Deliciousness level definitely upgraded. You see this? This is what happiness looks like. I should be on the outside of a Walmart bag. Also, I made a batch with potatoes in there. And that batch, as you can see, the color is not as pretty. And also, the overall dish doesn't look as pretty. But guys, do not let that fool you because now this pork is coated with a layer of delicious mashed potatoes that did nothing for 40 minutes besides soak up juicy pork fat. Oh, that is just out of this world. Here's a big piece of potato. Oh my God. I'm telling you guys, if you follow this recipe, that will probably be one of the best bites of potato you'll ever have. Like I mentioned, the potato did nothing for 40 minutes besides just soaking flavor. All sorts of flavor, the beautiful pork flavor, the chilies, the fats, the star anise. And what's so great is that the potato just covers the outside of the pork. It's like a delicious potato force field. I'm gonna have a big bite here. I am not kidding you, one ounce about how delicious this is. I mean, just look at me. Look how happy I am eating this. So I'm gonna put this down before I get a little too carried away. But guys, do yourselves a favor and go try this incredibly easy. How easy is this recipe? You take some pork belly, some soy sauce, some cooking wine, some ginger, star anise, throw it in a rice cooker. 40 minutes later, you can be just as happy as I am right now. And if you wanna be happier, go make my hot oil and drizzle that on top. And speaking of delicious foods, if you guys don't know, Blue Apron is a fresh ingredient in the recipe delivery service that can help you make delicious, tasty meals at home, regardless of whether you can cook or not. So kind of like what I do, except for I don't actually deliver anything to you guys. I'm sorry. Anyway, what was really cool was that Blue Apron asked if I would try one of their recipes out. They do have two types of plans, a two-person plan and a family plan. And I, of course, I ordered a family plan. I mean, it's just me, but I eat a lot. So basically you get this box. And by the way, it's always free shipping. So when you order it, a box comes to you and everything inside is fresh, it's chilled, it's ready to go. And I tried out this recipe for a spicy chicken sandwich and that was surprisingly good. Also, that might've been the best looking dish I've ever made. Cause usually, you know, I just throw things in a wok or in a pot and I just eat it. And guys, they also got a really cool offer. If you click on my link in my description box, you're going to get three free meals on your Blue Apron order. I think that's a pretty good deal. And I think you guys will really enjoy the food. But like I mentioned before, if you like pork, if you like fatty pork, if you like pork belly, definitely try this recipe out. It couldn't get any simpler. And I hope you liked this first episode in my rice cooker recipe series. If you do, please hit that thumbs up button. I would really love that. Thank you all so much for watching. And until we meet again, I'll see you later.