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Hunan Smoked Cured Pork (La Rou)

Name: Hunan Smoked Cured Pork (La Rou)
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 9 h
Total time: 9 h 30 min
Yield: 8 servings
Cuisine: chinese
Ingredients: 0.25 cup Salt; 2 tbsp Brown sugar; 2 tbsp Shaoxing wine; 1 tbsp Sichuan peppercorns, toasted and ground; 1 tbsp Five-spice; 2 tbsp Soy sauce; 1 tsp Pink curing salt (cure #1, optional but recommended); 1 handful Fruit wood chips; 0.5 cup Black tea leaves; 0.5 cup Raw rice; 0.5 cup Brown sugar; 2 lbs Skin-on pork belly, in long thick strips

La rou is Chinese smoke-cured pork, the backbone of Hunan and Sichuan home cooking, where slabs of pork belly are salt-cured, then hung in the kitchen rafters to slowly absorb smoke from the cooking fire for weeks. This version compresses that into a controlled cure and cool-smoke. The finished pork is firm, intensely savory, and used in small amounts to flavor stir-fries and rice. A genuine charcuterie craft with real food-safety weight — hence its place in the advanced section.

90°F9hServes 8Apple pellets with tea-smoking mix

Ingredients

8servings

0.3 cupSalt— Cure
2 tbspBrown sugar— Cure
2 tbspShaoxing wine— Cure
1 tbspSichuan peppercorns, toasted and ground— Cure
1 tbspFive-spice— Cure
2 tbspSoy sauce— Cure
1 tspPink curing salt (cure #1, optional but recommended)— Cure - safety margin
1 handfulFruit wood chips— Smoking mix
0.5 cupBlack tea leaves— Smoking mix
0.5 cupRaw rice— Smoking mix
0.5 cupBrown sugar— Smoking mix
2 lbsSkin-on pork belly, in long thick strips— Main

Method

Confirm you understand the risks

This recipe involves a food-safety-critical technique — cold smoking, raw or lightly-smoked fish, or taro (luau) leaf cookery. Each carries real risk if cure ratios, sourcing, temperatures, or cook times are wrong. Before following these steps, please review our food-safety guide and confirm the technique with at least one other reputable source (USDA, FDA, or a published reference).

I understand the food-safety risks of this technique and I will independently verify ratios, sourcing, times, and temperatures before I begin.

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