Hakka Pork

Belly fried until its skin blisters, then steamed on a bed of preserved greens that take up the fat.

Pork. Not vegetarian — contains pork.

Ingredients

• 700 g pork belly, skin on, in one piece
• 200 g preserved mustard greens
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• 4 slices ginger

Method

1. Soak the preserved greens in several changes of cold water for 30 minutes, then squeeze them out and chop them. Taste a shred: how salty they are varies hugely between packets, and everything else is seasoned around them.
2. Simmer the belly whole for 25 minutes, then dry it thoroughly and rub the dark soy sauce into the skin.
3. Fry it skin-side down in the oil, with a lid held over the pan, until the skin blisters and goes dark — 5 to 6 minutes. It will spit violently. THE FRYING IS WHAT MAKES THIS DIFFERENT from the taro version: the blistered skin stays distinct through two hours of steam.
4. Cool it enough to slice, then cut it 5 mm thick.
5. Fry the garlic and ginger briefly in the same pan, add the greens, the light soy sauce, wine and sugar, and stir for 3 minutes.
6. Lay the pork slices skin-down in a bowl and pack the greens on top, pressing down.
7. Steam for 2 hours. The greens sit underneath the fat as it renders and drink it, which is the whole arrangement.
8. Invert a plate over the bowl and turn the lot out, so the pork is on top and the greens underneath.

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