Current Events > i made udon with slow cooked pork belly

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Ingredients:
about 100g of pork belly
japanese soy sauce
sake
udon noodles
dashi (japanese fish broth powder)
some dried chili powder
some allspice powder
onion
garlic
green onion or leek
salt
sugar
pepper

steps:
basically you marinade the pork belly in salt, sugar, pepper, some allspice powder, around 2 shots of sake and around 3-4 teaspoon of soysauce. i do it overnight, but you can probably do it for less since we are slow cooking it anyway.

after marinading, take out the meat and prepare a pan, preheat it. put the mean on to sear the outside. like just for at most 30 seconds on each side so the insides are still raw but you get nice, crisp caramelized outside. you take your crockpot, put the meat in chop some onions and garlic and just toss it inside, also the soy sauce mixture you used to marinade the pork. add some water maybe half a cup and set it on low for 8 hours (so basically i marinate it yesterday night, then prepare the slowcooking this morning so i can just leave it while i am at work) after that turn it off, let it cool down.

now the udon is easy. just add around 300-400 ml of water, add the dashi wait till it boils and put the udon. when the meat has cooled down slice into stripes. now ordinary recipe would have you just mix the dashi broth with soy sauce and a little sake, but my recipe's biggest strength is i use the soy sauce mixture that has been simmering with the pork and herbs for a day into the mixture. like the difference is totally noticeable. the first time i made it (this is actually not my first trial) i tried the slow cooked soy sauce that has been mixed with the meat, and herb broth vs the fresh one from the bottle. the difference is just like night and day. the broth mixture is thick, soooo flavorful, aromatic and it has some of those delicious pork oil melted in it. finally chop some green onion and put them. the chili powder is optional if you don't like spicy stuff.

it's just perfect. the soup is flavorful and the meat just melts in your mouth. the problem is packaged udon noodles don't taste as good as freshly made noodles that restaurants have.
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mmmmmm
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