Chinese Braised Pork

Pork belly is getting very popular. This recipe is a take on Guang-do Lor Bak. Translation time: Lor bak is simply "braised pork." Guang-do is the capital of Szechuan. Let me hasten to add the dish is not at all spicy. Pure comfort.

Sometimes this is called "red cooked," because the particular sort of shaoxing (rice cooking wine) you're supposed to use is red. Don't panic, there are perfectly good, reasonably priced alternatives.




Ingredients:
1-1/2 to 2 pounds fresh, boneless pork belly, skin on if possible
2 to 3 inches of fresh ginger; i.e., one large or two small fingers
4 whole scallions
1/4 cup vegetable oil, preferably corn oil
2 cups chicken or roasted chicken stock
2 tbs dark soy sauce
1/4 cup shaoxing, medium-dry sherry (Amontillado), or dry Madeira
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 star anise

Technique:
Cut the pork belly in pieces small enough to fit in a pan. Cut the ginger into five or six pieces and crush them with the flat of a knife. Cut the scallions into four to six pieces each.

Fill a pan, pot, dutch oven, or preferably a clay pot with enough water to cover the pork (when it’s added). Put the pan on the stove, and bring the water to a boil. Add the pork. When the water comes back to the boil, reduce the heat to a fast/simmer low boil, and blanch the pork for about five minutes.

Remove the pork. Rinse it in clean water, and set it aside to dry.

Clean and dry the pan.

Cut the pork into cubes – about 2” per side.

Heat the pan over a medium-high flame, add the oil and bring it to temp. Return the pork to the pan and saute it.

When the pork starts to show some color, add all of the remaining ingredients. Bring the broth to a boil.

Either:

(1) Reduce the flame to low, partially cover the pan and allow to cook for two hours, stirring occasionally, until the meat is very, very tender and the stock reduced to deliciousness; or

(2) Remove the pan from the stove top, cover and place in the oven at 300F for two hours. After two hours, return the pan to the stove top. Remove the lid, and simmer until reduced – about thirty minutes more.


BDL


PS. As always, this recipe is original. You may share or repost it only on condition you credit me, Boar D. Laze. I would consider it an additional kindness if you would mention my enventually to be finished book, COOK FOOD GOOD: American Cooking and Technique for Beginners and Intermediates.

If I were doing multiple Chinese dishes, I'd include a steamed or fried seafood, gai-lan with garlic, and glutinous fried rice with sausage; and maybe a few other things depending on how many guests, and how willing I was to overtax my limited Chinese cooking skills. It would make a perfectly fine lunch with egg or rice noodles, or even Taiwan style rice noodles.

If I were doing a Euro-fusion presentation (something I like to do), using the pork as a main, I'd start with sesame fried chicken wings, buffalo wings, gravlax, seared scallops, or ... ?; precede the main with a composed salad of several ingredients (avocado, shrimp, papaya perhaps); serve the braised pork with a few steamed green beans and appropriately herbed rice on the same plate; and finish with fruit and an appropriate ice cream, pannacotta or maybe a lemon tart -- something not too heavy with a clean hit of citrus would go very well after that pork, I think.

BDL

Yes to messing around with braising liquids; but no to XO.

For the benefit of those not familiar with it, XO is essentially "salt and pepper" with a bit of a seafood spin. Topping a pizza with jalapenos and anchovies does the same sort of thing -- but with considerably more oomph. Not that XO lacks oomph. Also, it's significantly more accessible and goes extremely well on darn near everything. For instance, it would make a heck of a finish on top of Eggs Benedict.

I'm not sure when and where XO originated, but it burst like a bombshell in Hong Kong in the late seventies/early eighties -- and by the nineties had moved very assertively into the sort of better Hong Kong style U.S. restaurants which cater to a mostly Chinese clientele.

It can be made as a "dry sauce," i.e., a sort of garnish; or it can be mixed into oil, vinegar, both, or what have you to make a more normal, liquid sauce.

The XO style here in the SGV (San Gabriel Valley -- about 1 million Chinese people here) mimics the current popular HK trend, and that's dry.

To be more precise, our SGV style is a mince of dried scallops, dried shrimp and serrano chilies, with some finely ground white pepper. Sometimes it's elaborated by using two different types of shrimp; and/or red (often Thai bird) as well as green chili; and/or a little Chinsese ham; and/or szichuan pepper; and/or some minced, dried fish.

It's called XO, not because it contains any, but because it's as good as one of the top line cognacs. Also, good dried scallops are very, very expensive.

Hint: Buy broken scallops, same thing, cheaper, and you're going to chop them fine anyway. You usually can't find them at a Chinese supermarket, but can usually find them from a Chinese folk medicine/herb shop.

Returning to the question... No, I haven't tried it on a pork belly braise, but don't see why it wouldn't work if it was used to garnish the top of the meat chunks -- as long as they were presented (near) dry themselves.

Great questions. I'll not only try it, I'll try it on Eggs Benedict.

Thanks for the inspiration,
BDL