Buta Kakuni - AFF Japan Butakakuni # 3

My husband loves buta kakuni. He will order this whenever possible during out dine outs at his current fav Japanese restaurant in Ipoh. Of which is why I wanted to cook it.

I went through a few recipes and found Nami's recipe to be quite similiar to what we ate as I knew the meat was once fried.
The preparation take a lot of time, as said by Nami herself, the result is worth it.

I did a few changes or  should I say the lazy me skipped the step. I didn't pound and mould the meat.
And I misread her recipe thinking the ginger, leeks and spring onions were split into two parts for braising, only to realise my mistake when it's time to do the braising with dashi, that there are no longer onions and leeks into it. But I still put them in, and they all melted, luckily!
I also used more mirin, but less sugar , because I want to use more of the mirin I have.

My pork seems to be on the dark side...... reason? I burnt it at step 5. LOL. Didn't realize it has dried up and so when I added in more water, the gravy turned much darker,but luckily no burnt smell yet. Just an added bit of smoky flavour.

This pork is really very troublesome to cook, haha, but my hubby had a good time during dinner. So,it's really worth it.
It also happened I had guests over and they too, enjoyed these.

White mat: 1st and 2nd stage of cooking, Black mat: 3rd stage of cooking

Buta Kakuni
Adapted from Just one Cookbook 

750gm pork belly
25 +25gm ginger
1 leek, white and green separated
2 spring onions, white and green separated
1 bird's eye chilli (optional)
3 hard boiled eggs

4 Tbsp Japanese soy sauce
3 Tbsp Sake
6 Tbsp Mirin
2 Tbsp sugar
750ml dashi (kelp + fish)

1. Cut the pork into large cubes. Pan fry the pork cubes until lightly golden.
2. Place the pork cubes into a pot, put in enough water to cover.
3. Put in 25gm ginger, and the green parts of the leek and spring onions. Bring to a boil and lower to a simmer for 2 hours.
4. Strain the pork and discard the remnants and keep the broth(won't be a lot) and pork
5. Put everything back in pot and put in the balance of ingredients. Bring back to a boil and lower to a simmer and put a plate over the pork and let it cook for 1hour.
6. Remove the plate and put in eggs and chilli and cook for another 30 minutes.

I am submitting this to Asian Food Fest Japan Month, 

hosted by Alan of Travelling Foodies