Retro Chic & Bee Life: Left Over Queen! Chapter: Tomatoes, Onion, Pepper, French hazelnut sausage

I always have pepper, onion, garlic and tomatoes in my fridge. And sometimes, you just can't use up all of them in one dish so there is always some left behind. It's okay though because there are so many ways you can use them and create your own recipes to your liking.

With the sun shining for the last few days, sweet and juicy tomatoes seemed to be a good choice of food! They are full of vitamins, and they just make me feel happier after eating them.

What we got last night was some left over 1/3 of french hazelnut sausage, an onion, 1/2 of green,red and yellow pepper, 5 ripe tomatoes.

I purchased some fresh pork belly as the highlight of the dish to go with what I was about to make:
Grilled Pepper risotto in spicy tomato broth and homemade crispy pork belly!

To be honest, I very much prefer homemade pork belly than the ones in a local chinese barbeque shop, simply because there is less oil and MSG. MSG is a chemical that most fast food restaurant add into their food, to make it taste better and sometimes they use it to soften meat, especially beef. A lot of people are prone to MSG allergies and consuming too much of it is generally not good for our health.

Making your own pork belly might seem like a hassle but it is well worth it, if you ask my boyfriend!

To make pork belly, you first need to clean it and boil it before putting it in an oven.
1) boil a pot of hot water
2)poke holes on the pork skin with a toothpick , the more holes the better.
3) rub salt thoroughly onto the entire pork belly
3) place the pork belly into the hot bubbling water and let it boil for 15-10 minutes (you can cut vegetables and prepare stock while you are waiting!)
4) take out pork belly then let it cool for 5-10 minutes
5) use kitchen towel and pat dry the pork belly with a little TLC. Try not to get paper stuck onto the belly
6) use a knife and scrub gently across the pork skin. you will notice impurities being removed as you scrub across it. Repeat this step again twice
7) season with salt and pepper and massage the pork belly (you can also add herbs and chilli flakes)
8) add 2 tablespoon of olive oil and rub
9) once you have preheated your oven and then you can stick a long toothpick on the side of the pork belly to make the skin is on the upside. Otherwise you won't be able to get the crispy skin!
10) cook for half an hour or until the skin is brown and crispy!

Now onto the risotto part:
You need 1 cup of risotto rice, 1 onion, 2-3 pepper chopped into small pieces, sausage sliced, tomatoes chopped into small cubes.

1) heat pan and add olive oil. place the onion, pepper (if you don't have an oven) the sausage and let it fry on medium heat for 5-10 minutes until they are brown. Remove from pan but don't clean it. You want the natural oil from the sausage to soak into your tomato broth.
2) put the chopped tomatoes into the pan and stir, use the flat side of the spatula to press gently onto the tomatoes It will help squeeze out the juice and mash it into paste. That is also how i make my own spaghetti sauce. :) let it simmer for 5 minutes then return onion,pepper and sausage into the pan. Season as you prefer. 3) Add risotto rice into the pan, stir and add 500ml chicken stock. Always mix more than you need. Because as the liquid boils down, you will need to add a little more to avoid the rice from sticking onto the pan. you can turn the heat to medium or low, depending on how much time you have. The more time you have, the slower you can cook it then you can use low heat.
4) cook risotto as you would usually. Watch it constantly and you can stir gently in the middle (Gordon Ramsay probably won't agree ) :)

It usually takes me about 30 minutes to complete risotto. Make sure you taste and season along the way.

when it is done, you can put the rice into a shallow bowl and place the roasted pork belly on top to serve.

If you are a vegetarian, you can substitute the sausage with japanese mushrooms.(chinese mushrooms not preferred as they have a very unique taste; the thick japanese mushroom has a chewy texture closer to the texture of sausages)

I am sure you are all dying to see the outcome, so here it is the finished look: