Overdue recipe 1: Stewed Pork Belly in Sweet Onion and Apple Gravy

I think this post is the most defining one for my blog.  I am no longer vegetarian/vegan or some strict herbivore anymore.  I find it embarrassing to explain myself, but I believe I have to.  You see, I can no longer stomach fruits and vegetables - literally.  Anything with fibre bloats me up like a balloon, and the only things that I can safely eat are meat, meat, meat...and small amounts of cooked dark greens.  Pretty depressing in the beginning.  Especially on one occasion when I had to buy and cut a whole chicken body to make a chicken stew.  I felt sad over the fact I had to give up my beloved veggies and make meat my life.  But I am adjusting well, the biggest challenge being how to cook meat dishes with so little experience.  And I should add that I feel better knowing my boyfriend is rather pleased with the fact I have started cooking meat because that means he would get to eat meat when he comes back to Singapore.  

So I now present to you one of my first meat experiments during the two weeks when I had been away from blogging and focusing on my thesis (which I submitted yesterday).

Stewed Pork Belly in Sweet Onion and Apple Gravy

(It was a successful self-experimental recipe, at least IMHO.)

Ingredients

• Pork belly
• Yellow onion
• Red apple
• Ghee (or replace with other cooking fat)
• Goji berries
• Salt to taste (I used a tsp of nama shoyu)

Directions

1. Heat ghee in cooking pan.
2. Stir-fry yellow onion and red apple at medium heat for about 5 minutes till the apple starts to soften.  Don't use too high heat as the purpose is to draw out some water from the onion and apple which contains their sweet essence.
3. Add pork belly and stir-fry with the rest for about 3 minutes.
4. Add some water and let the ingredients simmer for about 15-20 minutes with the cooking pan covered.
5. Garnish with Goji berries (or add them in the last 3 minutes before turning off heat) and serve.

Verdict
As you can see, I did not use any sweeteners or other condiments (except for a little nama shoyu).  Yellow onion was used because I find it sweeter and less onion-y than red onion.  Thus it potentiates the sweetness of the red apple used.  When it comes to cooking fatty meat, I find that simmering is a good method to soften the meat and melt its fat to produce a richer tasting gravy.  I know many of you are afraid of saturated animal fat.  But having done my personal reading, I find that it is not harmful at all, and should be part of an (omnivorous) healthy diet.  The bad thing about Singapore is that I haven't found a place that sells non-factory-farmed pigs.  Sad, isn't it?