This was the mainstay dish through most of my student days away from home. It is so simple to make, fool-proof and keeps in the fridge ready for many meals following. I love this dish right till today..
Cooking this is simplicity itself.
Ingredients:
- Pork.- don’t be afraid to choose a cut with plenty of fat. Lean meat does not go well here. Quantity is entirely up to you – roughly 150 gm per serve. although pork belly is ideal for this dish, I would suggest using a less expensive cut such as pork shoulder. Actually, the tougher cuts have more flavour but require slower cooking which suits this dish perfectly.
- Garlic – 1 clove for each serve. The garlic is simply thrown in whole, with skin on.
- Ginger – 2 thin slices per serve. Do not chop it up. Just throw them in.
- Dark soy sauce – 3 table spoons per serve. We do not use regular soy sauce as it will make the dish too salty.
- Sugar – half tea spoon per serve.
- Clove – 1 per serve
- Chinese 5 spice – a sprinkling
Method
Place the pork in a small pot. We don’t want to spread the pork out thinly in the pot as the idea is to slowly stew the meat.
Throw everything else in and using your hands give the pork a good mix, rubbing the dark soy sauce , sugar and the other spices into the meat and leave to marinate for 20 minutes.
Place the pot on the stove on medium heat, add a couple of table spoons of water and cover. When the sauce starts to boil, turn down to medium low heat and cook for 30 minutes. Turn off the fire and leave for another 10 minutes. If you wish, you may add hard boiled egg(s) into the stew just before turning off the fire. Hard boiled eggs do add an interesting colour and that extra something to the dish. After cutting the egg on your plate, pour the sauce over the top of the yolk and your mouth will have a lovely interlude between chewing on the juicy pork
Enjoy the stew with plain rice, and as always, a small side dish of pickled vegetables will add to the enjoyment of this very simple meal.
