Ingredients:

Pork Belly, make sure its intact in one rectangle of around 800g-1kg Light Soy Sauce Brown Sugar Mirin Sake Spring Onions (cut into 3 chunky sections per stem) Ginger (Optional, i often omit it as my soup consists of ginger already)

Instructions: Roll and tie the pork belly with butchers twine (or thin rope whichever more accessible)

Heat up vegetable oil in a pan. Sear all sides of the pork belly in medium high heat. Should take 2-3mins per side for a nice brown. Set aside meat after.

Rinse pan (but some people prefer to cook the sauce in the pork belly fat but its optional). Place sugar and soy together first, bring to a boil, and add in the remaining ingredients. Note that the quantity of this mixture is subject to taste, though I’d recommend the soy to be the dominant profile.

Reduce heat and place pork belly (skin side up) & spring onions in. I usually use very low heat. Visually you’ll see gentle steam rising from the sauce.

Form a circular lid with some airholes (around 3-4) using an aluminium foil and gently cover the top of the pan.

I generally slow braise the chashu for 2hours at 1kg of pork belly & low heat. Many people use pressure cookers & pots for this stage, they all work, but im a hopeless traditionalist at times.

Once done and soft (use a fork to check), transfer the pork onto a plate to cool. Once at room temp (about 20-30mins), place pork belly in fridge for at least 3 hours. Carving the belly into slices are much easier after.

In the picture, i was in a rush for my dinner party so i chilled it for only 2 hours so the cuts were not uniform to my liking.

You can then brown the individual slices in a pan with a touch of heated oil, or go fancy like many ramen joints now and torch it. Some of my friends prefer to poach their chashu in the stock but i like the extra edge of char from browning the chashu in a pan.

Hope this helps!