Dongpo pork, belly braised in Shaoxing wine

Ingredientsserves 6

Equipment

• A heavy lidded pot — a 瓦煲 is best, a cast-iron casserole does the same
• A bamboo mat for the base. Without one, a layer of spring onion and ginger does the same job
• Cotton string

How the time splits

1. 20 minBlanch, cut, tie, build the pothands on
2. 1 hrSkin down on the lowest heathands off
3. 45 minTurned over, skin uphands off
4. 30 minSteamed in a bowl, if you want the fat to set to jellyhands off
5. 10 minReduce the sauce and platehands on

Method

1. Blanch the whole slab from a medium boil for fifteen minutes, drop it into iced water, cut it into 5 cm squares and tie each one crosswise with string.
2. Line the pot with the bamboo mat, or with a layer of spring onion and ginger. Lay the pork on top skin down, add the star anise, and the cassia and bay if you are using them.
3. Mix the wine, both soys and the rock sugar with 200 ml of water and pour it in. Bring it to the boil, cover, and drop the heat as low as it will go.
4. Braise one hour skin down, turn the pieces over, and braise another thirty to sixty minutes skin up, until a chopstick goes in without resistance. Look at it twice: top up with a little hot water if the liquid runs low, keep the heat at its lowest, and do not leave the lid off.
5. For the fat to set to jelly, move the pieces to a bowl with a little of the liquid and steam them another thirty minutes. This is the Hangzhou finish; the Hong Kong home version stops before it.
6. Reduce the sauce in a pan until it is syrupy. One piece each, the sauce poured over, and the string comes off at the table.

Take care

• Pork, soy, wheat, alcohol (most of it cooks off, not all of it — worth knowing if children are eating). If you use a whole bottle of wine on a gas hob, keep the lid on and the flame low.

The story

A Hangzhou dish that Hong Kong restaurants took up and that a home kitchen can manage. This page teaches the home braise: three tablespoons of wine, two hundred millilitres of water and two hours, and the meat comes out just as soft and just as deep. That is the 東坡肉 Hong Kong families cook, not a shrunken version of the restaurant one. The restaurant pot, a whole bottle of Shaoxing and four to six hours, is a different thing altogether, with a heat and a length of time no home kitchen has; it is named here so the difference is clear, not as something to live up to. The mat, or the layer of spring onion and ginger, is not decoration: without it the skin catches, tears, and the whole pot is wasted.

Same kind

Crackling roast pork bellyBraised shiitake in oyster sauceConpoy and whole garlic, steamed and turned out

Lo Fo Tong is cultural food-heritage reference, not medical advice. If you are pregnant, unwell or on medication, talk to your doctor or registered practitioner before changing what is in the pot.