Recipe: Taiwanese Braised Pork on Rice (滷肉飯 / Ru Lou Fan)

Taiwanese Braised Pork on Rice Recipe (滷肉飯)

I had a craving for Ru Lou Fan (滷肉飯) a few weeks ago, so I decided to try my hand at making this seemingly simple and delicious comfort food. Ru Lou Fan is a Taiwanese braised pork rice dish that can be found at many Taiwanese restaurants. It's a very simple dish consisting of just pork belly, rice, and some garnish (like pickled radishes or braised eggs). If you want to learn how to make Taiwanese Braised Pork on Rice, follow the step by step instructions below.


I did a simple Google search for "Ru Lou Fan Recipe" and came upon a website called Taiwan Duck. The recipe seemed simple enough and I already had most of the ingredients on hand. I did make a few "wooden chef" tweaks though, substituting the dried garlic for fresh garlic and omitting the dried shrimp. I love fresh shrimp, but I'm not a fan of dried shrimp.

I had to eyeball most of the ingredients since the recipe wasn't very specific in measurements, something I didn't realize until after I had already started cooking. "Half a bowl" is a very unscientific form of measurement! Nonetheless, I managed my way through the Ru Lou Fan recipe just fine, and ended with a delicious dinner!

Taiwanese Braised Pork Rice (Ru Lou Fan / 滷肉飯)

(recipe adapted from Taiwan Duck)

What you'll need:
2 lbs Pork Belly (looks like bacon, but thicker)
1.25 cups Soy Sauce
1 large piece of Rock Sugar
3 tbsp Dried Onion (or fresh if you have it readily available)
3 tbsp Fresh Garlic
1 cup Red Rice Wine
1.5 tbsp Chinese Five Spice
3 - 8 Eggs
Pickled Radish
Cooked Rice

1. Prepare the pork belly by chopping it into small cubes. Heat the work or pan to medium heat and and brown the meat for 5 - 10 minutes, until the meat is browned and some of the fat has melted off. You don't need to add any oil to the pan in this step, since the fat from the pork belly will oil the pan up nicely!

2. While you are browning and cooking the pork belly, you can get the eggs ready. We want to hard-boil all our eggs. In my example, I used four eggs, but you can use as many as you'd like (up to 7 or 8, since that's all we can reasonably fit in our pan!). If you like eggs, I would recommend making a larger quantity...they turned out so well I wished I had made more! Boil a pot of water and slowly lower the eggs into the boiling water. Be careful not to drop the eggs, since we don't want them to crack! Once the eggs are in the pot, you can bring it down to a simmer, and let it cook for 10 minutes.

3. Once the pork belly has browned lightly and some of the fat has melted away from the meat, add the rest of the ingredients except for the hard-boiled eggs and half of the red rice wine. Cover and steam for 5 minutes on medium heat. In the meantime, boil a small pot of water.

 

4. Add the small pot of water you just boiled to the pan, just until the water covers the meat. Peel the hard-boiled eggs that you prepared in step 2 and add them to the pan. Cover the pan and let it cook for half an hour, turning the eggs every so often to make sure all sides absorb the flavorful braising sauce.

 

5. After 30 minutes of cooking, add the remaining red rice wine to the pan and let it cook for 5 more minutes. Depending on how much water you added in step 4, you may need to leave the pot uncovered for a few minutes to let the sauce boil down to a thicker consistency. You can also use a corn starch slurry (2 parts cold water and 1 part corn starch mixed well) if you like an even thicker sauce.

6. For garnish, I sliced some Japanese pickled radish, which has a light and slightly sweet flavor to it. You can find these at most Asian grocery stores in the refrigerated section.

7. Scoop some white rice into a bowl, top with a generous mound of braised pork belly, and garnish with some picked radish and braised egg. Enjoy the Taiwanese Braised Pork on Rice (滷肉飯)!