Comfort food on a winter night: Red-cooked pork, a twice revised family recipe, first from my mother-in-law, reworked by son Jerry, and adapted by me (who gave him his grandmothers way as a base to start from). So here goes: Take a batch of boneless country spareribs (three of us eating, so perhaps six so there will be leftovers), cut them crosswise into pieces. Grate a knuckle of fresh ginger, the skin of an orange and powder perhaps a half tablespoon of Szechwan peppers, several cloves of garlic diced fine and two heaping teaspoons of sugar. Rub them on all the pork cubes and let sit for a while (brother Ted arrived at this point so we talked for perhaps 30 minutes). Heat the pot or wok or whatever then add a healthy dollop of peanut oil and let it get hot. Throw in the pork, stir regularly but not constantly and let it caramelize. Meanwhile cut up some bamboo shoots (found frozen whole ones in an Asian market, taste better than canned but canned works) and two turnips (daicon will work too) cut into trapizoidal pieces. When the meat is nicely browned, add about two cups of water (enough to cover), a huge dollop of soy sauce, a smaller dollop of dark soy and a similar slop of Chinese cooking wine, the bamboo, turnips, and perhaps eight dried shitake mushrooms (if you are working in a leisurely manner as I was not tonight, soak them first in hot water to reconstitute but it does work on slow cooking just to add them to the cooking liquid) plus several green onions and a hunk of ginger. Let simmer for over an hour, until the meat is falling to pieces. At the last minute, throw in several large handfuls of spinach. Jerry is more painstaking and blanches the spinach and then puts it in cold water to hold the color. We needed to eat so I just threw the spinach in, stirred it in until it wilted and served. A Chinese cooking teacher I took lessons from in Kuala Lumpur years ago said not to put a lid back on and the color would not be lost. We ate it too fast for that to happen. Serve with rice and enjoy.
Posted on: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 02:56:28 +0000
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