Nibuta-Don

 It was about time for making Nibuta.  I love this tender and juicy slow cooked pork because it looks gorgeous elaborate main course, well it certainly takes time, but in reality you don't have to do anything once you throw all the ingredients in the pot.  It's recommendable to cook 2 batches if you have a large enough pot, (you don't have to double the seasoning liquid) and you can preserve in freezer just fine for later use like for Ramen, fried rice and whatnot, ONLY IF there are any left:)  Doing so, you can economize relatively expensive (if you live outside Japan) Japanese ingredients like mirin and sake!   

I used Pork Shoulder which is lower in fat but usually Pork Beclly is used.  After cooking, let it rest in the soup for about half a day, if time allows.  It will make your pork even juicier and tastier!  Here is the recipe.

-Mar. 14 grocery shopping € 17.64/ € 130.18 left  

Ingredients
1000g/2.2lbs Pork Shoulder or Pork Belly
1/3 soy sauce
1/4 sake for cooking
2 tbsp. sugar
1/4 cup mirin
2 pcs. star anise
50g/1.7oz ginger
3-4 stalks spring onions

Directions
1. Peel and slice ginger.  Cut spring onions into 5cm/2'' length.  
2. In a large pot, put water, meat, star anise, ginger and spring onion.  Bring to boil and skim off as much scum and foam as possible. 
3. When the soup is clean, add soy sauce, sake, sugar, mirin.  Lower the heat and simmer for about 3 hrs.  
4. Slice and serve on top of warm rice, pour some soup over.  You can garnish with thinly sliced spring onion if you like.