Chinese Red cooking/Looing

[phatch]

I want to try this technique and am looking for ideas for the first dish. The most common one I see is for chicken, simmered and left to cool in the master sauce.

Then hacked up for serving and brushed with sesame oil and garnished with green onions or cilantro. Served cool.

As it's common, I wonder if it's considered the best or just the easiest?

What else is good?

Phil

[chrose]

I have made this a couple of times and it is good for once a year since it is beyond rich! Fantastic though!

1-3# Pork belly unsalted (fresh) with bones in and generous stripes of lean (easy to get at a Chinese grocer)
1/2 C Dry Sherry or Shaio Hsing wine
1 qt. cold water
3T dark Soy sauce
3T sugar
salt to taste

Leave the skin on the bacon and split in half cutting from the rind down. Cut each half into 2" squares (about 12-14 pieces) Put in a casserole dish or large wok and add water to cover. Bring to a boil, simmer 5 minutes and drain.

Rinse under cold water and drain again. Return to cooking vessel and add wine. Bring to high heat and cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or so.
Add the 1 qt. of cold water and bring to a boil. Cover and cook over medium heat about 30 minutes, stir and turn the meat occasionally. Add the sugar and salt, cover and cook another 30 minutes, stirring and turning the meat to prevent scorching.
Turn the flame to very low and cook, covered, 30 minutes to an hour longer, or until the skin is soft and the meat and fat are tender and the sauce is syrupy and reduces to 3/4 cup or so.

Craig Claiborn and Virginia Lee

[phatch]

That sounds good. Leftovers in fried rice sound stunning too...

The recipes I'm seeing also use ginger slices and star anise in the broth mix.

[mudbug]

Originally Posted by phatch

I want to try this technique and am looking for ideas for the first dish...

As it's common, I wonder if it's considered the best or just the easiest?

Anyone familiar with Chinese cuisine knows it predates most every other cuisine in the world simply because they've been around longer. Therefore many dishes are highly regarded as the most refined dishes in regards to texture, flavor, simplicity, and complexity. If a recipe is "common" it just means it has stood the test of time and was deemed worthy of passing along to future generations.

I always encourage people who have a well written recipe to follow the recipe as written so they can experience the intended results, then if you want to experiment, go from there.

[phatch]

Time to resurrect this.

I used the master sauce recipe from Staff Meals from Chanterelle by David Waltuck. It looked the most flavorful.

The first time I used it was for a whole chicken simmered, cooled then hacked and dressed. It was pretty good, a bit strong on the star anise. Then degrease and into the freezer with the sauce.

Next time, I did chicken again. This time, the chicken is cut in half, simmered, cooled in situ then deep fried. This was excellent, flavors were well balanced and a good dish.

This week, i took the sauce out of the freezer, refreshed flavors a bit and simmered as many chicken wings as would fit in the sauce. Cooled in the sauce a bit, then into the smoker for an hour to add a light hit of smoke.

Then under the broiler on both sides to render remaining fat, crisp the skin and really set the color.

They were amazing.

Yes, I've cooked a lot of chicken in the sauce. It has quite the gel quality to it when chilled. Soon I'll do some pork or duck in it.

[Grumio]

Chicken is great; I've also had excellent results red-cooking pork shoulder, beef chuck, & tongue (seperately). It would probably do a heck of a job on brisket in a slow cooker, then maybe glazed & finished in a broiler...

[DC Sunshine]

Originally Posted by phatch

I want to try this technique and am looking for ideas for the first dish. The most common one I see is for chicken, simmered and left to cool in the master sauce.

Then hacked up for serving and brushed with sesame oil and garnished with green onions or cilantro. Served cool.

As it's common, I wonder if it's considered the best or just the easiest?

What else is good?

Phil

Phil - do a google on the above. I saw it on tv and looked it up easily on the net, tried it - LOVED it - really really easy and Delish. Sounds like your master stock would do the job.
Cheers,
DC

[phatch]

Yes, I've done that and it was good.