Hakka Pork Soup

A twelve-minute soup where the pork is the point rather than the broth.

Pork. Not vegetarian — contains pork.

Ingredients

• 350 g pork loin, in thin slices
• 2 teaspoons cornflour
• 1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine
• 1 bitter melon, halved, seeded and sliced
• 900 ml light stock or water
• 3 slices ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground white pepper
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 2 spring onions, sliced

Method

1. Toss the pork slices with the cornflour and wine and leave them 10 minutes. The cornflour keeps thin slices tender in liquid and slightly clouds the soup, which is expected here.
2. Salt the bitter melon slices and leave them 10 minutes, then rinse. This takes the hard edge off without removing the bitterness, which is the reason it is in the bowl.
3. Bring the stock to a simmer with the ginger and the white pepper. Use more pepper than feels sensible: it is doing the work that three hours of bones does in the Cantonese soup.
4. Add the bitter melon and simmer 5 minutes.
5. Slide the pork in, separating the slices, and cook for just 3 minutes. TWELVE MINUTES in total from a cold pan — the meat is meant to be eaten, not spent.
6. Season with the salt, stir the sesame oil through off the heat, and scatter the spring onions over.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under China · All recipes