One-Pot Soy Braised Pork Belly & Egg

Add the shiitake mushrooms to a bowl and cover with 6 cups of hot water. Set aside.

Let’s start with the marinade. Using a pestle and mortar, pound together the coriander root, garlic and white peppercorns until it becomes a fine paste. Next, add the shallot and the palm sugar, then continue pounding to form a sticky paste.

Add the pork belly pieces to a large bowl, followed by the marinade paste. Now add in the remaining marinade ingredients: the dark soy sauce, soy sauce and fish sauce. Give everything a good mix until all the pork is evenly coated, then leave to marinate for 2 hours in the fridge or overnight if possible (but even just 10 minutes will still be okay if you’re in a rush!).

Place a medium-sized pot (you want one that has a lid; we’ll use that later) over medium-high heat. Add in the marinated pork and keep things moving at a gentle sizzle for around 4–5 minutes – you want every side of the pork to start getting a little colour, but you want to avoid any burning.

Time for the spices and flavour-makers. Add in the cinnamon stick, cloves and star anise. Grab your bowl of soaking shiitake mushrooms. Remove the mushrooms, reserving the soaking liquid, and give them a gentle squeeze. Use a knife to remove and discard the stems, then cut those mushrooms in half before chucking them into the pot with your spices. Pour in the soaking liquid too and give it all a stir.

Now we want to add a cartouche – sounds fancy, totally isn’t. Essentially you want to cut out a round of baking paper that’s big enough to sit on top of your braised wondrousness, and add a slit in the shape of the cross to the centre so that some of the steam can escape (watch the recipe video to see what I mean). Now pop the lid to your pop on, turn the heat to low and leave everything to make friends for 2 hours, stirring occasionally.

Add the peeled soft-boiled eggs to the pot and very carefully give things a gentle mix to get some of the braising liquid on your eggs. Pop the lid back on and gently cook for another 15 minutes to get the flavours infusing.

Scatter over the black pepper and gently stir through. Serve with coriander on top, if using.