Glazed Miso Pork Belly with Vegetable Stew

Wendell made this a couple of nights ago.  The recipe is from the same Star-Advertiser article that had the Sparerib Stew recipe which I posted on Thursday.  The pork belly was way too fatty for me, so I scraped off all the fat.  It was very, very tasty though.



Pork:
1 2-lb piece pork belly
1 inch ginger, crushed
Salt
1/2 c white miso
1 tbs sugar
1 tsp grated ginger
1 tsp awamori or mirin

Stew:
1/2 kabocha squash, seeds removed
1 Okinawan sweet potato, peeled
1 6-inch piece lotus root, peeled
8 ounces Hamakua mushrooms
1 cup dashi
1 tbs shoyu
1 tbs mirin
4 stalks green onion, trimmed

Cover pork belly with cold water and bring to a rolling boil. Drain and rinse.  Return pork to pot and add enough water to cover.  Add crushed ginger and pinch of salt.  Bring to simmer and cook until pork is tender, about 1 to 1 1/2 hours.  Remove from liquid and let cool.

In small bowl, mix together miso, sugar, grated ginger and awamori. Set aside.

For stew, cut kabocha into 1-inch slices, sweet potato into large pieces and lotus root into pieces 1/4-inch thick.  Trim tough stems from mushrooms and halve or slice larger ones.  In pan, combine dashi, shoyu and mirin.  Add vegetables and cook until just tender.  Cut green onions into 2-inch lengths and add to stew.  Cover and set aside.

Preheat broiler.  Slice pork into 1/2 to 3/4 inch slices.  Place slices on broiler pan and broil until lightly brown, about 2 minutes.  Turn over and spread miso mixture over pork.  Continue to cook until miso bubbles and browns.

Divide stew into shallow bowls and top with pork belly. Serves 4.