Monthly Archives: May 2010

Recipe

Red-cooked pork recipe

Famous from the UEP Supply Chain Design team weeks for two years running. Following many requests, here’s the recipe in all its simplicity. It was tempting to give the quantities to serve 20, but a more family-sized serving is more practical.

The recipe serves six normal people (with some veg side dishes), or four hungry supply-chain consultants. You may think there is far too much soy sauce, but the quantity is correct. It mellows in the cooking process and the other ingredients take up the salt.

Ingredients

  • 1.5kg pork belly
  • 100ml dark soy sauce (I use Kikkoman)
  • 450ml water
  • 1 heaped tablespoon sugar
  • 5cm long chunk of root ginger, peeled and thickly sliced
  • 3 pieces star anise
  • 60ml dry sherry or Chinese rice wine (e.g. shaoxing wine)

Directions

  1. Cut the pork into strips about 1 inch by 2-3 inches. You will need a very sharp knife to get through the rind. If your butcher has scored the rind, go with the flow of the score marks and that should make it easier.
  2. Bring a large pan of water to the boil and blanch the meat for 5 minutes. Drain and rinse the meat in cold water. This helps keep the sauce clear.
  3. In a clean casserole, put the blanched pork and all the other ingredients. The water should cover the meat – add more if necessary. Bring to the boil then turn the heat down low as possible and cook uncovered for 4 to 5 hours. The timing is very forgiving, but you will need at least 4 hours for all the stringy tissue in the pork to break down. Check regularly that the water is not running low and top up with boiling water from the kettle.
  4. Just before serving check for saltiness and sweetness – it sometimes needs an extra teaspoon of sugar or a dash of soy. Don’t do this until the very end though.
  5. Serve with plain rice and a veg dish. As the pork contains lots of soy, I usually cook the rice without salt to accompany this dish.

After the blanching stage, you could also do this in a slow cooker, in which case the water should be boiling when added to the pot. This would cook quite happily for 8 hours.