Twice Cooked Chile Pork Recipes

Steps:

• Place pork, 6 scallions, ginger and salt in large pot. Add water to cover. Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer 1 1/2 to 2 hours, until tender. Remove meat, and discard liquid. When pork has cooled, remove skin and any bones. Cut meat in half crosswise, then slice it thinly lengthwise.
• Slice remaining scallions lengthwise, then in 3-inch pieces.
• Heat oil in wok or skillet. When very hot, add pork and stir-fry until lightly browned, 6 to 8 minutes. Pour off excess oil and fat. Add garlic and ginger, and stir-fry 10 seconds. Add scallions, and stir-fry 2 minutes. Add chili paste, rice wine, soy sauce, sugar and Sichuan pepper, and stir-fry another minute. Scatter with cilantro and serve.

Steps:

• Simmer pork:
• Put pork in a 5-quart pot and cover with cold water by 2 inches. Bring to a boil, skimming foam as necessary, then add ginger and scallion. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, until pork is just cooked through (it should no longer be pink inside), about 1 hour. Drain in a colander and cool (pork will be easier to slice).
• Cut pork crosswise into 1/8-inch-thick slices (discarding any bones) and pat dry.
• Stir-fry pork and leeks:
• Wash white and pale green sliced leeks in a bowl of cold water, then lift out and drain well. Pat dry. If using Chinese leek greens, wash separately in same manner.
• Stir together chile bean sauce, cayenne, black beans, and sweet bean sauce in a small bowl.
• Stir together wine and soy sauce in a small cup.
• Heat a wok over high heat until a bead of water dropped onto cooking surface evaporates immediately. Add 1 tablespoon oil, swirling it around wok, and heat until it begins to smoke. Carefully add pork slices (oil will spit) and cook, letting slices lie flat against wok to brown but stirring occasionally, until golden, about 3 minutes. Transfer pork with a slotted spoon to a bowl.
• Add remaining tablespoon oil to wok and heat over high heat until it begins to smoke. Add chile mixture and stir-fry 1 minute.
• Return pork to wok and stir-fry until coated with chile mixture. Add wine-soy mixture and stir-fry until pork is coated. Add white and pale green parts of either kind of leek and stir-fry until almost crisp-tender, 2 to 3 minutes. Add Chinese leek greens if using. Continue to stir-fry until leeks are crisp-tender (and greens are just wilted), about 1 minute.

Steps:

• Sprinkle meat with salt and pepper. Put a large skillet over medium-high heat; a minute later add 2 tablespoons butter and/or oil. When butter foam subsides or oil dimples, add meat (curve it into skillet if necessary). Brown it well on all sides, for a total of 4 to 6 minutes. Turn off heat, remove meat from pan, and let it sit on a board. When skillet has cooled a bit, proceed.
• Cut meat into inch-thick slices. Once again turn heat to medium-high, add remaining butter and/or oil and, when it's hot, add pork slices to pan. Brown on each side, about 2 or 3 minutes each. Turn heat to low and remove meat to a warm platter.
• Add 1/2 cup water to pan, turn heat to high, and cook, stirring and scraping, for a minute. Lower heat slightly, add cream and cook until slightly thickened. Stir in mustard, lemon juice or Calvados, if you're using them, then taste and adjust seasoning. Serve meat with sauce spooned on top, garnished, if you like, with parsley.

Steps:

• The day before you want to eat, lay the pork belly skinned-side down, season generously, scatter over the fennel seeds and crumble over 3 of the bay leaves. From the widest side, roll into a tight log and use some butcher's string to tie at regular intervals. (You could take some fennel seeds and bay to your butcher and ask them to do it for you.)
• Heat oven to 170C/150C fan/gas 3 1/2. Melt the butter in a large, shallow flameproof casserole dish or ovenproof sauté pan. Brown the pork all over (this will take a good 15 mins), then remove from the pan and add the vegetables and remaining bay leaves. Cook for about 10 mins until starting to colour. Nestle the pork among the veg. Pour over the cider and bring everything to a simmer, cover and cook in the oven for 2 hrs.
• When the pork is ready, leave to cool a bit, then remove the pork from the braise and chill. Strain the sauce into a jug and chill. Fish out the bay leaves and blitz the veg to a purée in a food processor. Tip into a bowl and chill.
• On the day, heat oven to 220C/ 200C fan/gas 8. Cut the pork into six rounds. Heat the oil in a large frying pan and fry the pork, then put in the oven for 20 mins, turning halfway through, until crispy. Meanwhile, remove the solidified fat from the top of the braising juices, simmer until syrupy and reheat the purée. Serve everything in the middle of the table or smear some of the purée across plate, sit a piece of pork on top next to a burnt butter cabbage wedge, a piece of potato cake and some crackling (see 'Goes well with', right). Pour over some of the sauce and serve.