Stewed pork with brown sauce is a very famous Chinese dish, with several different cooking methods all over the country. In Huaiyang Cuisine, which dominates Jiangsu Province and Shanghai area, this dish is cooked with a fair amount of sugar, and only the basic condiments: salt, cooking wine, soy sauce and vinegar. The color tends to be more toward red rather than brown, and the texture of the meat is a little sticky.
In Sichuan cuisine, the flavor of braised pork with brown sauce is very different compared with that in Huaiyang Cuisine. First of all, the dish represents one of the major flavor that is emphasized in Sichuan Cuisine — the flavor of “Wuxiang” (五香), which means the combination of the “five spices“: star anise, fennel, prickly ash, cinnamon and cloves. Secondly, sugar doesn’t play a key role in this dish like that in Huaiyang Cuisine. Sugar that is used in Sichuan-style dish is mainly for coloring the meat and final adjustment of the flavor. Also, adding a few red dry pepper according to personal taste can make a difference in the hot level of the dish.
Star anise. Photo from Baidu.com
Before I start Step-by-Step section, I will talk about the fundamental material of this dish: the pork belly, which contains an appropriate proportion of lean and fat. Pork belly is rarely seen at Walmart or Hyvee in U.S., probably because most Americans cook pork with oven, just like how they cook steak. So they don’t want too much fat in the pork. However, for this dish, a fair amount of fat is very important, and is key to the good flavor. So if you are on a diet, I am sorry you may need to pass it. Or, you need to find pork belly at some Asian market around you.
Also, if you don’t eat pork, you can try beef with almost the same cooking method. You may just need to spend more time in stewing because it’s harder to stew beef into tender status. Also, asides from potato, which is the typical matching material with stewed pork, you can add carrots in stewed beef. I love the flavor of carrots in it.
Step by Step:
You need not only a pan, but also a steaming pot, or a pot that’s deeper than a pan.It’s a complicated process at the beginning, but once you practice for three times, it’s really easy! The whole cooking process for this dish requires about one and a half hour , but once you move everything to the steaming pot, you can just start cooking other dishes, and make use of the 40 to 60 minutes before it’s done.
1. Prepare pork belly, potatoes (a little bit fewer than pork). prepare some star anise (3 or 4 max), dry red pepper( not necessary, just my personal taste), prickly ash, dried bay leaf (similar to cinnamon), salt, sugar, soy sauce, cooking oil, cooking wine, sliced ginger, sliced garlic and chopped green onion.
These are condiments for this dish. Sep. 22, 2012
2. Boil the pork belly! Yeah, seriously, boil the water, add some ginger and green onion, and put the pork belly in it and cook for about 15 minutes. The time can vary, just check the meat by making a chopstick going through the meat. This process help the meat get partially done, and make it easier for you to cut the meat into pieces. (PAY ATTENTION: if you don’t boil the pork for a long time, the fat in the pork can really piss you off when you try to control it in slicing.
3. Then cut the pork into pieces. You need to pay attention to the size and shape of the pork when cutting. I usually do four to six inches square, and six to eight inches long. Try to keep all the layers of the belly on one piece to make every piece of the stewed pork taste good. Then filter the water in the pork.
Chop pork into slices like this.
4. Begin cooking! Heat a small amount of water and some sugar in the pan, and pour into the pork and mix them. Add a little soy sauce to add the color. After the pork turn a little yellow and brown, put them back to a bowl and filter the water again (Oil cooking is coming so I don’t want you to get hurt!).
5. Clean the pan and make it try. Pour some cooking oil in it and heat it, then add some sliced ginger, sliced garlic and green onion, star anise, dry red pepper, prickly ash, cinnamon (basically most of the condiments) and fry them a little bit with high temperature. When you smell the flavor coming out and the oil seems to boil, you can pour the pork in the pan again, and add some cooking wine (don’t forget!), and mix them all together. Most of the time you don’t need to add more oil because the fat in the meat can turn into oil, but if you do feel the need, go ahead and pour more oil in it.
Fry the condiments a little and add the pork in the pan. Mix them and add some soy sauce.
6. Mix all the things together, and add a little soy sauce and salt, then you can move everything into a steaming pot, and add water that’s just a little more than enough to cover everything (leave some room for potatoes). Use high temperature until the water is boiled and then change to medium temp. Cook for about 40 minutes with medium temp until the meat is tender (for some devices may take up to 1 hour)
7. Chop potatoes and put them in water for a while (to get rid of the extra starch in it). Put in chopped potatoes and change to high temp, when it’s boiling again, you change back to medium, and cook for about 15 minutes (don’t go too long, or you’ll get smashed potatoes). Before you put in potatoes, you can taste the meat and the soup in it, if the meat is salty, you may need to add a little more water, or add some salt if needed.
Finished product! The coloring is not very good this time because I added the soy sauce too late while I was frying the pork. So, timing, is also very important!
Sichuan Dishes, and More. 