Simple Red-Braised Pork

[zhemao]

Seems like there's a lot of great western recipes being posted. My specialty is Asian cuisine, since I'm Chinese American and learned to cook from my mother. I'll start out with that most quintessential home-cooked Chinese dish, hong shao rou or red-braised pork. There are many different ways of cooking this, but this is the method used in my family, with some modifications I've made through my own experimentation.

Ingredients:

• Pork (traditionally pork belly, but other fatty cuts will do, I usually use Pork loin b/c it's cheap)


• Ginger


• Scallions


• Star anise


• Sugar


• Shaoxing rice wine


• Sugar


• Cinammon (normally you'd use sticks, but powder works fine)


• Soy sauce


• Hard-boiled eggs (optional)

Directions:

1. The first step is to blanch the pork. This starts the cooking process and ensures there isn't any unwanted clotted blood or other impurities in the final product. Bring a pot of water to boil. Once boiling vigorously, drop in the pork and simmer for 1-2 minutes. The surface of the pork should now have completely turned color.


2. Drain the water and rinse the pork under cold water.


3. Cut the pork into bite-sized cubes.


4. Pour some rice wine into the pot. You don't need much, just enough to cover the bottom.


5. Heat the pot on high. The alcohol should quickly start to evaporate. Once it has burned off, add pork, soy sauce, and water. There should be enough liquid to completely cover the pork. The proportion of soy sauce should be enough to make the liquid dark brown.


6. Add about half a tablespoon of sugar.


7. Add cinammon. If you're using sticks, just one stick should do. If using powder, be sparing with it. A small dash should be enough.


8. Add 2-3 slices of ginger and one piece of star anise.


9. Bring the liquid back up to boil and them turn the heat to low. Cover and let simmer for 30 min.


10. If using hard-boiled eggs, use a knife to score them lengthwise four times (equally spaced scores). Add them in halfway through the simmering. At the end, they should have turned a nice brown color.


11. Add chopped scallions and turn back to high. Once the liquid starts bubbling strongly again, turn off the heat.

And that's it. This dish goes very well served over steamed white rice. You can also cook some stir-fried vegetables ot go on the side.

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