Stewed Pork Belly

豚の角煮 (Buta no Kakuni)

I'm not a big fan of pork fat, but I'd wanted to try making kakuni for a long time. I know a number of people who can't admire Santa Ramen's kakuni enough and was wondering if I could possibly make kakuni that tastes as good as theirs myself? I basically combined two kakuni recipes from Japanese books and added the slow-cooking process even though it may not have been necessary (I just love using my slow cookers!). The whole process took two days, but it was worth it. Posting each step with photos pretty much real-time on Facebook made it so much more fun to cook! Somebody who tasted my kakuni said it was as tasty as Santa's! Not bad for the first time! If you're interested, here's my recipe.

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Day 1 (Yesterday)

1.5 lb. of pork belly. I've got two of these.

First, cut the pork and put it into a pressure cooker.

After pressure cooking for 30 min. When it was cool enough, I refrigerated it overnight.

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Day 2 (Today)

Look at how much FAT there is! I had to say good-bye to it.

Moved the pork into a slow cooker.

Slow-cooked it all day long.

Looking good & smelling great. As the final step, I moved the pork into another pot and simmered it. Here's video of that. ↓




I brought my kakuni to a party the next day, and it was a big hit!