So without further ado... Shanghai Style Braised Pork Butt. Oh but some pictures first, so you know what it is you're laboring towards...
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OK, first of all, the traditional Chinese cut of pork to use is the hind leg, AKA hock or knuckle. Really though, any cut is fine as long as it's high-fat and high-connective-tissue. I like pork butt b/c it's a little bit leaner, but the downside is that there's less gooey chunks of gelatin in there which is what makes it all so delicious. Also, pork butt is definitely way more widely available, and if I have guests, picky palates would find it more familiar to eat.
Ingredients: Pork, ginger, scallions, garlic, star anise, soy sauce, rice wine, rock sugar
1) First, blanch the pork in boiling, salty water. You can blanch it as long as you like: the longer you blanch it and the more of that frothy stuff comes out, the clearer your sauce is gonna be, but if you're just cooking for family, a minute of blanching is plenty, and I always believe that I'm losing more flavor than I need to if I blanch for longer than that.
2) Take the pork out of the pot, let it sit and cool off in plate/bowl (so you collect the juices that may flow). When it's just barely cool enough to handle, pat dry with paper towels. As the pork is cooling off more, heat up a dutch oven with a little bit of oil until the oil starts to smoke. Now sear the pork, fat/skin side down first. Leave it there for 2 minutes or so on high high heat while a bit of a crust develops and some of the fat renders out. When the skin is sufficiently browned, sear the other sides until they too, have browned.
3) Remove pork, now throw in the ginger (there should be enough pork fat that's hot enough that the ginger should be popping). After a bit, throw in the star anise, scallions and the garlic (in that order, preferably). It's difficult to overload on the scallions, garlic, and ginger (in that order), but be careful with the star anise... two to maaaaybe three stars per pound of pork, tops. When the fragrance of this aromatic quartet start to overwhelm your kitchen (but before the garlic burns), deglaze with a cup or so of the soy sauce + rice wine mixture. If you have a stove hood that won't melt, you might even want to light the rice wine on fire (I always do), especially if you have anybody watching... it's *very* dramatic. Now add Chinese rock sugar and let it dissolve fully. You want to add enough sugar that the sauce just begins to taste *too sweet*.
4) Now put the pork butt back in the pot, lay some uncooked scallions over it, and fill the dutch oven with more soy sauce + rice wine + sugar until it comes up to about an inch from the top of the meat. The final sauce before the braising process should be balanced thusly: the soy sauce + sugar in balance so that it you can't decide if it tastes savory or sweet, and enough rice wine so that the sauce doesn't make you pucker up from how salty it is.
*Note, if your dutch oven is significantly bigger than your pork cut such that it's taking a LOT of soy sauce + rice wine to reach that level, feel free to stick some other things in the pot to help bring up the level. I suggest a peeled, medium-boiled egg or two, maybe some dried or extra firm tofu, drained, of course.
5) Now throw the whole thing in the oven, let it braise for 4 hrs plus at 250F. Unless I'm in a hurry, I usually check at 4 hours to see if it's falling-apart tender yet... if not, then I re-check at 45 minute intervals. If you're in a hurry, you can do 3 hrs at 300F and start checking at that point, but I recommend low and slow. When it's done, DE-FAT! Always remember to de-fat (skim the layer of oil off the top) or... or ELSE! OR ELSE! Just do it.
That's it! 5 easy steps! Have fun trying to get the damn thing out of the pot, LOL...
