Boiled Pork Slices with Garlic Sauce

  • 55 minutes
  • 2 servings
Boiled pork with garlic sauce is a staple dish of Sichuan cuisine. The meat is boiled in a simple broth until just cooked, then sliced and served with a garlicky mala dipping sauce. The skin, fat, and lean meat of each pork slice offer a full spectrum of meaty flavors and textures for a authentic eating pleasure of Sichuan taste.
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Ingredients

Pork 300 grams
Crushed Garlic 2 tbs
Chili Oil 3 tbs
Sichuan Pepper Powder/Oil 1 tsp
Soy sauce 2 tbs
Sugar 1 tbs
Sesame Oil 1/2 tsp
salt 1/2 tsp
Msg 1/3 tsp
Tolerance -+10%

Instructions

  • 1Buy boneless, fatty, skin-on pork which has a proper proportion of fat and lean meat. The ideal proportion is roughly 40% fat and 60% lean meat.
  • 2At one burner, use grilling tongs to hold the pork, scorch the skin over flame until skin is blistered and slightly shrivels in size. If there is no hair on skin, this step can be omitted.
  • 3Rinse the pork in hot water for 5 min and scratch the skin with a knife. Clean with warm water in two times.
  • 4Place the pork in a pot and add enough water to cover, along with a few slices of ginger, green onion, 10 pieces of Sichuan peppercorns and one tablespoon cooking wine (optional). Bring to a boil and simmer over medium low heat for about 20 minutes until the pork is about 90% cooked. Turn off heat and leave pork in pot under cover for another 25 minutes. The trick is that the pork is cooked through but not overcooked .
  • 5At the time pork is boiling in the pot, prepare the seasoning dipping sauce. Crush purple skin garlic cloves down into paste in a mortar and pestle. Mix the garlic paste, chili oil, soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil and Sichuan pepper powder (or oil) into a sauce bowl. Add 1 or 2 tablespoon soup of boiling pork and some minced green onion.
  • 6Once boiled, the pork is taken into a dry plate to cold down for about 5 minutes before cutting. Using a sharp knife, slice the pork as thin as you can, unless each slice has skin strip, fat and lean meat well attached together. Arrange the pork slices on a serving plate and put some seasoning sauce on top for decoration (At home, do not put any sauce so as to keep any leftover in plain flavor). It is better to serve pork in warm with dipping sauce.

Tips & Notes

  1. Type of pork makes difference.

    The pork used most in Sichuan is Erdaorou 二刀肉, which is the second cut at pork rump butt portion, right next to the first cut at the butt asshole of a pig.

    This cut is the best for Twice-Cooked Pork too. Unfortunately, one pig has about 5 pounds only. Occasionally, a butcher in Asian store may cut one for you if your request gets understood correctly because pork cutting practice in the US is different of China.

    Comparing with pork belly, Erdaorou tastes less greasy but much tender in fat and has better lean meat.

    The next best we could get at some Asian store is a cut of pork butt, such as the one used in this recipe.

    Pork belly is most easy to slice (with fat and lean meat well attached) and popularly available in every Asian supermarket and many specialty stores. Costco sells pork belly that has no skin on.

    Essentially, any pork can be used no matter it has fat and/or skin.

  2. Boiling pork is a tricky task.

    The boiling water should use ginger to flavor pork at the first touch, with green onion, cooking wine and Sichuan pepper optional.

    The pork is added to cold water such that pork can be heated evenly. If boiling for Twice-Cooked Pork, however, pork should be added to boiling water.

    The pork has to be cooked through. but should not be overcooked. Otherwise, the fat and lean meat may not ideally connect together, and the fat becomes mushy and greasy.

  3. Slicing pork is pretty technical.

    If slicing after the pork becomes cold completely, the fat and lean meat are easier to separate. The best is that the pork is cold outside but hot inside. The pork should be served in hot or warm too.

    Cut at a certain knife angle against the grain of the lean meat.

    There is no standard about the cutting size of each pork slice. Slice the pork as thinly as you can, while each slice has skin strip, fat and lean meat attached together. The slices can be as long as possible and hang up on a shelf to serve (home cooking may use cucumber as holding base and chopsticks to make the shelf).

  4. Seasoning sauce is the key, but its variation is unlimited

    If you want to use store-bought chili oil, Laoganma Chili in Oil and Baiweizhai Chili Oil are recommended.

    If you want to make chili oil for this dish only, simply place the mashed garlic, two tablespoon chili powder and salt in a rice bowl. Heat 3 tablespoon cooking oil to high heat and pour on the chili powder. Add soy sauce and sugar and you are ready to serve.

    If you want to make chili oil in general, refer to our recipe "Sichuan Hot Chili Oil".

    Soy sauce can be light soy sauce and all-purpose soy sauce, but the best is the seasoned soy sauce made with our recipe.

Knowing how to eat pork leaf lard as meat makes this recipe magically simpler

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