Rice Champion: Stir-fried Pork Belly with Carrots

Today's champion dish: Stir-fried carrots with pork belly! The steamed carrots are soft, tender, and incredibly sweet, paired with crispy pork belly—you'll never get enough rice! This is a favorite dish among Sichuan and Chongqing locals, a common dish on every family's table, a truly down-to-earth and quick hearty meal with extremely high popularity. This dish smells so good it makes your mouth water. Thick slices of carrot are steamed first, then coated in a glistening red oil sauce, making them incredibly tempting. The steaming process locks in the sweet juices of the carrots, which burst in your mouth with the savory sauce. The rendered fat from the pork belly seeps into the carrots, adding a touch of sweetness that balances the richness of the meat and enhances the overall flavor. The pork belly is pan-fried until crispy and fragrant, the fat glistening but not greasy, the lean meat soaked in the sauce yet tender. A bite of carrot followed by a bite of meat—the fresh aroma fills your nose, sweet and delicious, a true rice killer!

Ingredients

250g pork belly with skin
500g carrots
1.5 tablespoons light soy sauce
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
2 tablespoons of cooking wine
Sichuan peppercorn shells or scallions (optional)
Ginger (appropriate amount)
6 cloves of garlic
One garlic sprout
2 tablespoons of Pixian Doubanjiang (Sichuan chili bean paste) or a little bit of dry pot sauce

Steps

Ask the butcher to singe off the pig hair from the pork belly skin. Once home, soak it in warm water for a while, then scrape the skin clean with a knife and set aside. I specifically prepared double the amount of pork (500 grams), otherwise, if I only cut a small amount to stir-fry, the fat content would be too high. Stir-frying only fatty or lean meat isn't very tasty, and stir-frying half-fat and half-lean meat together would be too much. So, I simply boiled the entire double amount of pork to save the trouble of boiling it again next time. This time, I only used a portion for stir-frying, saving the rest for other dishes later—super convenient!
Peel the carrot, leave it whole for now, and cut it later.
Put the pork belly in a pot of cold water, add some cooking wine, ginger, and peppercorns or scallions, and blanch it. After the water boils, cook for 25 minutes, then put the carrots in and steam them together until they can be easily pierced with chopsticks. It saves gas and is convenient, a lazy person's method.
Take the pork belly out of the water, wash it clean, and cut it into thin slices, separating the fatty and lean parts! When frying later, the fatty part will be put into the pot first to "perform" rendering the oil, this step is very important.
Cut the carrots into thick slices! They must be thick so they're flavorful. Let me tell you, this dish tastes even better with carrots than meat, so don't complain about not putting in enough carrots.
Separate the roots and leaves of the garlic sprouts and cut them into pieces. Prepare the garlic cloves and slice the ginger. If you have small onions, add them; if not, it doesn't matter. The key is to be flexible.
Pour oil into a pot, then add the fatty pork belly to render the fat over medium-low heat, remembering to cover the pot! When you need to work, turn off the heat or turn it down to low, and wait until the sizzling sound stops before opening the lid to avoid getting splattered with oil. Render for 2-3 minutes. Next, add the lean pork belly and stir-fry together, still covering the pot to prevent oil splattering. Stir-fry until both sides of the meat are slightly charred and fragrant; that's the right flavor.
Push the meat to the side of the pot, add garlic cloves, ginger slices, and garlic sprouts and stems, and stir-fry over medium-low heat until fragrant. Then add some chili bean paste or dry pot sauce, and continue to stir-fry over low heat until the oil turns red. The aroma will be so enticing that the neighbors will come knocking on the door! Next, add the carrot slices and stir-fry evenly with the meat and sauce until each slice of carrot is coated with the sauce. It looks so delicious!
Add 1.5 tablespoons of light soy sauce and 1 tablespoon of oyster sauce, then throw in the garlic chive leaves, stir-fry quickly for a few seconds, and it's ready to serve!