Taiwanese lu rou fan. Braised pork on rice. Rou zhao fan. There are a handful of names for this dish but it’s basically Taiwanese comfort food. My mom and grandma made this all of the time when I was young and I finally asked them for the “recipe” a few years ago. Not surprisingly, their instructions were vague and contradicting. But a good home-cooked meal is all relative as everyone has their own preferences (hence the blog name). So after a few years of making this dish on the reg, this is my interpretation. Read on if you’re interested…
A little bit of background information to start: I am an engineer with a full-time job. The legit (read: better, fattier, more delicious) version of this dish requires skin-on pork belly, painstakingly chopped, and blanched (to get the icky stuff out). However, I don’t have time for that coming home from work. My mom didn’t either growing up so this is our week-night version with ground pork instead of pork belly. Save the pork belly version for the weekend.
Ingredients
1 lb ground pork
rehydrated shiitaki mushrooms
1-2 cloves of garlic
fried shallots
rock sugar
hard-boiled eggs
baby bok-choy
Liquids
soy sauce
dark soy sauce
rice wine
water from rehydrated mushrooms
Rehydrate the mushrooms. Pour some boiling water over them in a bowl and put a plate over it (helps speed things up). Try to do this first so the mushrooms are ready to go by the time you’re frying off the pork. Once the mushrooms are rehydrated, save the water and chop them up into small pieces. I love mushrooms so I tend to put more than my mom did.
Fry the pork on medium heat. Saute off the pork until it’s gone from frying, to steaming a little as the water comes out, and back to frying again. You’re not looking for crispy bits here but enough sizzle to get a little bit of caramelization going. Throw the small bit of rock sugar in there too. The sugar rounds out the sharpness of the soy sauce and gives it more depth.
Mushrooms, garlic, and fried shallots go in. The reason you want to rehydrate the mushrooms first is so you can let the mushrooms take on some color in the pork fat before the liquids go in. Both my mom and grandma say absolutely no garlic in this dish…. but… sorry. 1 clove for me! Fried shallots also go in at this point -FYI the fried shallots are non-negotiable. They are what gives this dish its distinctive taste and it wouldn’t be lu rou fan without them.
Liquids go in. With one pound of pork, I usually use about half a small bowl of soy sauce (approximately 1/3 cup???) The dark soy sauce is meant for color and tastes the same as regular soy sauce. I typically put half of the amount of regular soy sauce. In goes the rice wine and a bit of the water from the mushrooms. The general idea is that the liquids should come up to just under the meat level.
Side note: My mom uses about the same amount of rice wine as regular soy sauce and fills the rest up with water. My grandma says to use no water and all rice wine. I like my grandma’s version better (sorry mom) - however, using all rice wine required more cooking time in order for the alcohol to cook off. So my weeknight version is a fusion of both methods and uses the mushroom-flavored water instead of plain water. Save the other method for weekend cooking.
Simmer away. At this point, active cooking is done. Cover the pot and let it bubble away on a medium low heat for around 35-40 minutes. Obviously, any braised dishes taste better the longer it cooks. But 35-40 minutes yields a pretty darn good meal for a Tuesday night too. In the meantime, cook your rice and blanch some baby bok-choy.
Taste. Around the 20 minute mark, I like to give a quick taste to see where I’m at. The meat should be slightly salty. The reason for this is because the pork mixture is meant to be spooned over plain rice, topped with blanched vegetables (no added salt). Therefore, all of the salt is coming from the pork. If it’s tasting too salty and sharp, throw in a little bit more sugar and some water. Keep tasting until you’re happy with it.
Finishing touches. Layer it all up! Rice, meat, veggies. I like to do a soy-braised egg on the side too (I’ll try to do a separate blog post on those!). A spoonful of spicy, chili oil on top makes the whole dish pretty glorious too. Enjoy!
