Braised Salted Fish (咸鱼) with Pork Belly

This dish is best with salted fish head, especially threadfin (午鱼).  Fish head produce the gummy consistency of the gravy, and make the pork smoother.  However, it is ok even you are using salted fish fillet.  This is very easy to cook, although the instruction looks lengthy.

Ingredients

1. 50-100 grams salted fish head (approximate)
2. 600 grams pork belly with skin.
3. 4 tablespoon dark soya sauce
4. 1 tablespoon sugar
5. 5 cm section of ginger
6. 3-4 garlic
7. 3 tablespoon cooking oil
8. 4 cups water

Method

1. Scrape off the skin of the ginger, cut into slices. Peel garlic and chop into small pieces
2. Rinse the pork and drain dry, and cut into thick strips, about 2 cm wide, and the length is the thickness of the belly meat.  Each piece will has the skin, fats, and the lean meat in layers (that is why another name for pork belly is 3-layer meat 三层肉)
3. Heat up a wok or pot. Add in cooking oil, ginger, garlic and salted fish, and fry till fragrance aroma of ginger and salted fish can be smelled.
4. Add in pork, and allow the surface to be scalded by stirring around (or tossing).  Add in dark soya sauce and continue the scalding process.
5. When the soy sauce aroma fragrance is smelled (a little burning smell is ok, but do not over burn), pour in water, stir to even out and allow contents to be in contact with water.  Cover and allow to simmer in low heat for 1-2 hours.  Check occasionally, and if gravy dries up, add water (preferably you should not need to, and if you do, it means the fire to too big and cause high rate of evaporation.)
6. After 1 hour, check the tenderness of the pork is what you like, if not continue cooking and check every 15 mins.  I prefer to cook till the fat is really soft and will almost melt in the mouth.
7. When done, this is the tricky part.  Remember we do not add any light soya sauce or salt, and how salty is the gravy depends only on the salted fish.  Taste the gravy and check the gravy consistency (it should be a bit thick and sticky). If the gravy is too salty for you, you have no choice but to add water.  If not, and the gravy is too watery, you can up the flame and do not cover, let it boil and evaporate to increase the thickness.  If the saltiness is right, and the gravy is too watery, you can dissolve some corn flour in water in a bowl, and stir in slowly a little at a time and stop when the consistency is just right.  If consistency is right, and not salty enough, add some salt. If you are using fish head, you should not have this problem of consistency, as the gravy should be quite sticky already. 
8. Serve.