Cook’s notes
While humba looks very similar to its Chinese ancestor, especially after cooking, the texture and flavor are different. That’s because of the difference in some ingredients and in the cooking procedure.
Unlike the Chinese dish, there is no need to deep fry the pork belly to blister the skin before braising. Humba requires no browning but we do it anyway, in a simpler manner, both for flavor and texture.
(To make sure that we are able to make clean slices of pork belly, we modify the basic humba recipe by braising the pork for twenty minutes or so just until the center is no longer pink but the meat is still on the tough side. The pork is scooped out, sliced and returned to the pan to continue braising until tender.)
And, unlike Chinese red-braised pork belly, there is no Shao Xing rice wine, or any alcoholic ingredient for that matter, in humba sauce.
The braising liquids consist of soy sauce, vinegar and unsweetened pineapple juice. So, yes, humba is essentially salty, sweet and sour with plenty of umami flavors from fermented black beans.
Tip: If your pineapple juice is more tart than sweet, add a bit of sugar for balance. Just omit if you’re already satisfied with the salty-sweet-sour flavor of the sauce. I have to stress this because some people prefer the sauce to be sweeter than usual while others want the sweetness to be more subtle.
Humba
Ingredients
- 1 kilogram boneless pork belly (2.2 pounds)
- 2 tablespoons cooking oil
- 2 shallots or one onion, peeled and sliced
- 5 cloves garlic peeled and sliced
- 2 star anise
- 1 bay leaf
- 2 tablespoons black bean sauce (available in Asian groceries)
- 2 tablespoons ketchup
- 3 tablespoons soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons vinegar
- ½ cup unsweetened pineapple juice
- ¼ cup sugar
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
Instructions
- Pat the pork belly dry with paper towels.
- Heat the cooking oil in a wide thick-bottomed pan. Lower the pork in the hot oil, skin side down (watch out as the oil will spatter) and sear on all sides.
- Add the sliced shallots and garlic to the pork, and cook, stirring, until the vegetables soften a bit.
- Throw in the star anise and bay leaf.
- Add the black bean sauce and ketchup.
- Pour in the soy sauce, vinegar, pineapple juice and about a cup of water.
- Stir in the sugar and black pepper.
- Bring to the boil, cover the pan, lower the heat and simmer for 20 minutes.
- Scoop out the pork and transfer to a cutting board.
- Cut the pork into one-fourth inch slices then slide back into the simmering sauce.
- Cover the pan once more and continue cooking the pork over low heat until tender.
- Serve with rice.
Sopas (Filipino creamy chicken macaroni soup)