{"id":174101,"title":"Authentic Lu Rou Fan – Taiwanese Braised Pork","modified":"2026-09-19T07:46:22+02:00","plain":"This delicious Taiwanese braised pork is the perfect comforting combination of melt-in-your-mouth meat and sweet-savory flavors\n\n\n\nWith roots in both China and Taiwan, it is one of the most popular dishes in the latter. Its origins spark plenty of debate within the Asian community. In fact, the American blog The Woks of Life shares the following anecdote in its article on Lu Rou Fan: \n\n\n\nTo set the record straight, the Taipei government actually launched a major campaign in 2011, handing out more than 1000 bowls of lu rou fan while claiming ownership of the dish.\n\n\n\nThey draw a comparison with the American government, but can you imagine the French government handing out thousands of chocolatines (just kidding, I’m on team pain au chocolat) purely as a publicity stunt? \n\n\n\nHow is Lu Rou Fan traditionally served?\n\n\n\nLet me start by saying that if you buy Lu Rou Fan in Taiwan, the pieces of pork will be much smaller. Personally, I love big chunks of melt-in-your-mouth pork belly, as in Chinese braised pork (Hong Shao Rou), so this version is something of a middle ground. \n\n\n\nThe pieces are wide like those in red-braised pork, but very thin like traditional Lu Rou Fan. Honestly, cut them to whatever size you prefer.\n\n\n\nThe famous red-braised pork, one of my favorite dishes\n\n\n\nAs for toppings, you usually have eggs braised for about twenty minutes in the same broth on one side, and blanched vegetables on the other. Those are missing from the photo too. Why? Just because. \n\n\n\nShould you use dried or fresh shiitake mushrooms?\n\n\n\nPersonally, I prefer using dried mushrooms. They soak up all the juices as they cook, turning into big flavor bombs you can really sink your teeth into \n\n\n\nWhy not serve some Ha Kao alongside it? \n\n\n\nThe main ingredients in Lu Rou Fan\n\n\n\nAs with red-braised pork, you will find the classic Chinese cooking wine (Shaoxing), both types of soy sauce and, of course, star anise, along with cinnamon to round everything out. \n\n\n\nFor the sugar, I use palm sugar, but you can use any kind of sugar\n\n\n\nWhat should you serve with Lu Rou Fan?\n\n\n\nWell, essentially, this is a complete meal in itself. BUT, if you have guests over and are putting together a small Asian food buffet, you could jazz it up a little. \n\n\n\nInstead of white rice, you could try Cantonese fried rice, fried rice or even yellow rice (no, not my dear fellow YouTuber Le Riz Jaune: last I heard, his recipes were excellent, but he himself is not edible)\n\n\n\n\n\n\tAuthentic Lu Rou Fan - Taiwanese Braised Pork\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\n\t\tWok\t\n\t\n\t\t450 g pork belly (cut into approximately 1.5 cm pieces)2 teaspoons oil50 g sugar4 dried shiitake mushrooms60 ml Shaoxing wine45 ml light soy sauce30 ml dark soy sauce500 ml water4 hard-boiled eggsEpices100 g fried shallots (substitute fried onions if needed)3 star anise pods1 cinnamon stickGarnitures (facultatives)Kai lan blanched for 5 minutesBok choy blanched for 5 minutes\t\n\t\n\t\tCut the pork into pieces of your preferred sizeBring a saucepan of water to a boil and blanch the meat for 1 minute. Drain, rinse to remove any scum, and set aside.Heat the oil in a wok over low heat and add the sugar. Cook the sugar until it starts to melt.Add the blanched pork belly, fried shallots, Shaoxing wine, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, and water. Stir and bring the mixture to a boil. Once boiling, add the spices and mushroomsSimmer for 2 hours over low heat, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking.Add the hard-boiled eggs after 1 hour and 40 minutes of cookingAt this point, the meat should be fall-apart tender. To finish the dish, remove the spice packet and increase the heat to medium-high to thicken the sauce, stirring occasionally. This process should take about 5 minutes. The sauce should be thick enough to coat a spoon, but there should still be plenty of it.Serve over white rice with blanched vegetables\t\n\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\n\t\tPlat principalChinoisePorc brais\u00e9","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcwiner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcwiner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcwiner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcwiner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcwiner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcwiner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcwiner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcwiner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcwiner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcwiner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}