Lu rou fan recipe: Taipei's braised pork rice at home

This lu rou fan recipe brings Taipei's everyday bowl home: diced pork belly braised slowly with soy sauce, rock sugar and fried shallots until the sauce turns sticky enough to cling to every grain of rice.

The name 滷肉飯 simply means braised meat rice, and the MICHELIN Guide Taiwan traces it to frugality: vendors chopped the fatty and lean offcuts nobody wanted and simmered them together so nothing was wasted. In 2011, when a Michelin Green Guide credited the dish to Shandong, the Taipei City Government called a press conference to claim it back as Taiwanese.

Today it is sold for a few dollars at counters across the city, from Bib Gourmand addresses such as Huang Chi Lu Rou Fan in Zhongshan to Jin Feng on Roosevelt Road. This house version follows the classic method, with a halved soy-braised egg on top.

Lu rou fan is patience in a bowl: cheap pork, slow heat and shallots doing the heavy lifting.

Ingredients

• 800 g skin-on pork belly
• 150 g shallots, thinly sliced
• 120 ml neutral oil
• 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 30 g rock sugar
• 80 ml Shaoxing wine or Taiwanese michiu rice wine
• 60 ml light soy sauce
• 30 ml dark soy sauce
• 1 tsp five-spice powder
• ½ tsp ground white pepper
• 600 ml water
• 4 eggs, boiled for 8 minutes and peeled
• 400 g rice, cooked, to serve
• Pickled cucumber or yellow radish, to serve

Method

1. Blanch the belly whole in boiling water for 5 minutes, then cool it. Firm, cleaned meat is far easier to cut into neat 1 cm dice, skin included.
2. Fry the shallots in the oil over medium-low heat for 10 to 12 minutes, stirring, until golden. Lift them out; they turn bitter if they darken, and the fragrant oil is your cooking fat.
3. Heat 2 tablespoons of the shallot oil and fry the pork for 8 minutes until the fat renders and the edges colour. Add the garlic for 30 seconds.
4. Add the rock sugar and stir until it melts and glazes the meat, then pour in the rice wine to lift the browned bits from the pan.
5. Add both soy sauces, five-spice, pepper, half the shallots and the water. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer on the lowest heat for 1 hour.
6. Add the eggs and remaining shallots and simmer uncovered for 30 minutes, turning the eggs, until the sauce coats a spoon. The collagen in the skin thickens it without starch.
7. Rest for 10 minutes, then spoon pork and sauce over hot rice, halve the eggs and add pickles.

How Taipei cooks it: fat, lean and time

The MICHELIN Guide's demonstration uses neck or belly at roughly 70 per cent fat and simmers for about three hours; longer and gentler only improves it. In southern Taiwan the same braise is called rou zao fan and is often leaner. Pair it with cold oolong tea, or try our galbi-jjim recipe for another soy braise, and our gyoza as a side.

Frequently asked questions about this lu rou fan recipe

Can I make it ahead? Yes. The braise tastes better the next day and keeps for four days in the fridge or three months frozen; reheat gently with a splash of water.

Can I use minced pork instead of belly? You can, but choose a fatty mince and add a strip of skin to the pot, or the sauce will stay thin.

What if I cannot find rock sugar? Use the same weight of light brown sugar. Rock sugar gives a cleaner sweetness and a glossier finish, but the difference is small.