Braised Pork Belly, Red Snapper Congee (rice porridge), Water Chestnut Cane Juice, Japanese Sweet Potato

Hello everybody!
Thank you for visiting our website.

Today we would like to share two typical Japanese food with you.

That is braised pork belly which is called Buta no Kakuni (literally Buta means pork, Kakuni means braised in square shape).
This cuisine is originated from Okinawa island that the most south small island of Japan, which is my favourite.

The pork belly sliced into square shape and braised with soy sauce, Sake, Mirin with some vegetables.
By slow cook, the pork is extremely soft and actually you don’t need any table knives for this meal.

Also I must not miss to say that we throughly removed fat which is not healthy for us from the flesh before starting braising, so pleasantly only good nutritions remains in the pork.

Another one is Japanese congee which is named Ocha-zuke. Ocha is literally tea and zuke is soak or marinate.
The other day, we got a fresh red snapper from the wet market of Tiong Bahru, then we cleaned that and made into fillets. Then removed the gills and made nice fish broth using that’s head and spine because we don’t want to waste their wonderful resources.

What a crystal clear broth!

Then we steamed the Japanese (short grain) rice with this broth, fillet, ginger and Kombu (kelp) together.

Just before serving, all we do is pouring the hot fish broth which was infused from the red snapper in advance over the rice.
Our Japanese congee is completely different from other Asian one but that is our traditional style.

Lastly we are going to share all dishes on the table.

This is Singaporean beverage, water Chestnut Cane Juice. At the wet market, when I asked my favourite vegetable stall about water chestnut which was completely new to me, she kindly peeled the shell and letted me taste the water chestnut. I much appreciated her generosity to fill up my curiosity.

Water chestnut’s appearance is pretty similar with other chestnut however the shell is not hard at all like others. And texture and taste is absolutely similar with pear. So succulent and subtle sweetness.

The upper left bolls are water chestnuts that covered with soil.
After washing away any dirt carefully and slice.

Very interesting hun?
Then I followed the recipe which the market stall taught me how to make the juice. Simmer with cane and water chestnuts, just that is.

To be honest, for me, only the sweetness of cane is not enough for me who might be not humble, so I secretly added honey into the juice.

And as a dessert, just steamed Japanese sweet potato and yogurt.

The Japanese one is amazingly sweet itself, so just steamed one is already decent dessert.

Phew, it’s Thursday today and I’m going to dim sum dinner out with local friend. Yayyy!

I hope you have a great day today too.

Naoko xx

About Naoko Kashiwagi 1018 Articles
Japanese chef, Culinary artist