Recipe: Hung Shao style pork [easy]
Many cheaper cuts of meat are wrongfully neglected in our cooking because they tend to regarded as unpleasantly fatty or difficult to eat. With a little care, however, cuts like pork belly (as we are using today) or even neck of lamb can be utterly delicious, their large amounts of connective tissue making them perfect for slow cooking and stewing. One excellent way to prepare pork belly is to cook it in one large piece slowly in the oven with apples and cider, scoring the fat so as to achieve delicious crackling. Today’s recipe is both another excellent way to cook pork belly, but also a good way into Chinese cooking, which can often seem daunting. I was once told by a great friend and scholar of Chinese food culture that Chairman Mao attributed his longevity to this dish. My pork belly came from the super market in strips but if you can procure it from a butcher in a large piece then that would be preferable. It is wise to trim off some of the gristle, but it is important to keep almost all the fat and the skin, once cooked slowly and for a long time, they contribute greatly to the texture of the finished dish. The dish itself is rich, sticky and faintly sweet when finished, so it is best serve with plain rice or noodles and some green veg.
Ingredients (serves 1):
150g pork belly, skin on
1/2 tsp cinammon 1 pinch chilli
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp rice wine
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp water
1 x spring onion
Rice or noodles, to serve
Method:
1. Remove any gristle from the meat and cut into chunks.
2. Place into a cold pan with the soy sauce, rice wine, water, cinnamon and chilli. Season well (though take care because some soy sauces can be very salty).
3. Cover and place on a very low heat and leave for 1 hour.
4. Add the sugar and, possibly, a tablespoon of water if it looks a little dry (depends on how well your lid fits). Stir well.
5. Simmer for a further 45 minutes until fragrant and sticky.
6. Serve on a bed of rice or noodles and garnish with sliced spring onions.
Tip: adding the ingredients to a cold pan and then putting it onto the heat will mean that more of the fat is rendered out of the pork. In general adding meat to an already hot pan will seal it, which is important where the meat is lean.
[Youtube video on the way—i.e. as soon as the internet is good enough to upload it!]