Fragrant Pork Belly with Thai Basil

My mini garden has been growing weeds....!!! Hubby wanted to throw away all my plants especially those inedible plants and keep those edible ones. What should I do??? I still want to keep my plants especially those herbs which I need it every now and then. At the end, we decided to keep only the edible plants and concentrate on edible garden which we think is more practical. Thai basil is in abundance and they are in fact too matured. So, what I did was to harvest all the herbs and replant them for another new batch of herbs garden.
Since Thai Basil is in abundance, I decided to fully utilize it. Hence, stewing pork belly with it is one of the many dishes I have cooked.

For your info, when I was young, I never like or would not touch pork belly. Even when I ever did eat it, I would always throw away the fat and take the lean meat. However, these few years, I don't know what has gotten into me. I LIKE pork belly especially the FAT!!! I know it's unhealthy but ah..... eat first health later... hahahaha.... The gravy is especially yummy and when mixed with rice, we can easily go for 2nd helping of rice! The recipe for this is taken from my previous posting on Stewed Pork Belly with Fried Tofu.

Ingredients :
- 1 strip of pork belly (blanched and cut)
- 1 bunch of Thai Basil
- 1/2 tbsp fermented soy bean paste/tau cheong (for frying)
- 1 1/2 tbsp fermented soy bean paste/tau cheong (to taste)
- 1 bulb of garlic (finely chopped)
- 1 thumbsized ginger (sliced and crushed)
- water (enough for stewing)

Seasonings : (to taste)
- a dash of salt
- 2 tbsp light soy sauce
- 3 tbsp caramel sauce (reduce the amount if you don't like your dish to be in dark colour)
- 1 tsp sugar

Method :
1) Heat some oil in a wok and saute garlic, ginger and 1/2 tbsp of fermented soy bean paste until aromatic.

2) Add pork belly and stir fry for a while. Mix well.

3) Add water, the remaining fermented bean paste and caramel sauce. Stir and mix well.

4) Cover and let it boil at high heat for about 5 minutes. Then, lower the heat and let it simmer until the gravy is thickened and/or the meat is cooked and tender. It takes about 30 to 45 minutes depending on the fire and pot/wok used. Add water if you want more gravy.

5) Lastly, add in Thai Basil and the remaining seasonings. Bring it to a boil again for 1 or 2 minutes.

6) Dish up and serve with steamed rice.

If you like pork belly, this is a very flavorful dish

Hope you like this homey dish. It's also great to serve it with plain bread instead of steamed rice. Do enjoy.

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