The aroma of cooking filled the house: I sent my eldest brother to become the Grand Secretary.

While making the flounder stew, Shen Cao had already started stewing the abalone and braised pork.

She remembered that when she was in Stone Village, she made braised pork for the village chief, and Shen Yu'an ate half of it.

Today she plans to make an upgraded version of braised pork, braised pork with abalone.

She really loved Xin'an County. It was a coastal place with a comfortable climate, and the docks had fresh seafood every day.

She took out the abalone she had bought at the seafood market that morning from the ice cellar. The abalone were very large, almost the size of her fist. The key point was that each abalone only cost one coin, which was much cheaper than what she had bought in her previous life.

She used a spoon to pry the abalone off the shell. The abalone were already frozen and scattered, so it was easy to pry them off.

She doesn't eat the abalone's internal organs, so she removed them, leaving only the abalone meat.

Use a brush to clean the edges of the abalone, then remove the abalone's mouth. The mouth of the abalone is a bit hard, which affects the taste.

After cleaning the abalone, she used a knife to make decorative cuts on it. Shen Cao's knife skills were truly inherited from her grandfather; the knife marks on the abalone looked as if they had been drawn with a ruler, and they were very even.

When abalone is blanched in water, the abalone meat shrinks as it heats up, and the cuts on the surface of the abalone turn into abalone flowers due to the shrinkage.

After preparing the abalone flowers, it's time to process the pork belly.

She took out the pork belly she had bought from Uncle Li that morning. The pork belly had three layers of fat and lean meat, and each layer was of uniform thickness. The lean meat was pink and plump, and the fat was white and plump, which looked very appealing. This could definitely be called top-quality pork belly.

In her past life, she told her parents that if they saw this kind of pork belly in the market, they must buy it. This kind of meat is rare and hard to come by. Shen Cao was also very surprised when she saw it today. She bought the whole big piece by herself.

However, buying meat nowadays is not like the butcher shop in the old days, where the butcher would singe the pig skin to remove any remaining pig hair.

Some people who don't care much will scrape the surface of the pig skin with a knife when cleaning pork. Although this method can remove some pig hair, some will still remain. However, the main component of pig hair is also protein, and after eating it, it is not much different from meat. At most, it will just make you feel a little disgusted when eating it.

Some people who are particular about hygiene will use special tweezers to carefully remove all the pig hair from the surface of the pigskin.

Shen Cao wasn't that particular, but she wasn't that careless either. She used the method her grandfather taught her: throwing the pork belly into the stove after the fire had just gone out, using the remaining embers to burn off the pig hair on the skin.

After the fire in the stove had completely died down, Shen Cao took out the pork belly.

The pig skin was charred yellow, but every single pig hair was burned away. Another benefit of burning the pig hair in this way is that it can damage the pig's sweat glands, which can effectively remove the pig smell, which is what some people call the "pig smell".

She put the cooked pork into a basin, added water, first scraped off the charred surface with a knife, and then scrubbed it vigorously with a stiff brush until the pork skin was clean.

Put the washed pork into a pot, add water, cooking wine, ginger, green onion, and a little Sichuan peppercorns, and bring to a boil. The Sichuan peppercorns can further remove the pork's fishy smell, so the cooked pork will have no fishy smell at all.

Rinse the cooked pork again to remove any surface scum, then cut it into pork belly pieces about two fingers wide.

Heat the wok. No oil is needed. Simply add the cleaned pork belly pieces to the wok and stir-fry.

As the temperature rises, the fat from the pork belly is rendered out. Originally, no oil was added to the pan, but now there is a layer of oil at the bottom.

To make pork belly less greasy, the step of rendering the fat is essential.

The lard can be poured out and then used for stir-frying.

Add the prepared garlic, scallions, ginger, bay leaves, cinnamon, star anise, and other seasonings.

When you're rendering the lard, you can only smell the lard. But once you add these seasonings, the aroma of the spices is brought out by the high temperature of the oil, and the fragrance immediately comes out.

Continue frying until the surface of the pork belly undergoes a full Maillard reaction and each piece of pork belly turns slightly browned. Then add soy sauce, cooking wine, and other seasonings. The most crucial step is to add an appropriate amount of rock sugar.

Some people like their food to be a little sweeter. For example, people from Shanghai and Suzhou in my previous life would add more rock sugar to increase the sweetness.

If you don't like it too sweet, just add four or five pieces of rock sugar to enhance the flavor and freshness.

Shen Cao likes slightly sweet pork belly, so she added about ten pieces of rock sugar, then poured in the abalone flowers she had prepared beforehand, added boiling water to cover the ingredients in the pot, and simmered it over low heat for half an hour.

While the braised pork was simmering in the pot, she went to make other dishes.

Half an hour later, the pork belly was stewed until tender and flavorful. At this point, there was still more than half a pot of water left in the pot. Shen Cao tasted the soup and found it a little bland. It would be just right after the sauce was reduced.

Shen Cao added another piece of firewood to the pot, and the fire in the stove grew bigger, while the broth in the pot bubbled and boiled vigorously.

The fire kept evaporating the water in the pot, and Shen Cao kept stirring the braised pork with a spatula to prevent it from burning.

The sustained high temperature evaporated the excess water in the pot, and the slightly bland taste became just right.

As the moisture evaporates, the originally pale color slowly changes.

Until all the water at the bottom of the pot evaporates and clear oil remains, the surface of the braised pork becomes very shiny and looks very tempting.

The presence of sugar gives the braised pork a deep reddish-brown color.

The braised pork belly, with its rich, dark sauce, is ready to serve.

With the help of time and heat, the originally elastic protein undergoes a wonderful reaction.

The fat in the pork belly turned into something like jelly, wobbling around with every movement.

The lean meat became very tender and not dry at all.

The fat and lean meat are interspersed, ensuring that diners won't break the braised pork when picking it up.

The moment it enters your mouth, with a gentle sip, the top layer of pork skin and fat melts in your mouth, and you don't even realize you're eating meat.

But with one bite, the perfectly balanced texture of the lean meat gives you the authentic feeling of eating meat.

Shen Cao carefully used a spoon to place the braised pork belly into the small casserole she had prepared beforehand, arranging it neatly like a pyramid. The abalone was surrounded by the pork belly, like a blooming braised pork flower.

Add a sprinkle of chopped scallions to add a touch of green, and Shen Cao looked at the braised pork in front of her and nodded in satisfaction.