Here's a great pork recipe for the winter. I use the finished product – flaky, juicy bits of pork and fat – in ramen, with white rice and greens, or nestled between doughy buns like here.
Boil some water in a large stockpot. Throw in a two lbs pork leg with a handful of black pepper, a star anise and 1 bay leaf. Simmer for about an hour. You're basically doing the first cooking of the meat here.
Ok, next step: frying the pork leg. Remove the meat from the simmering water and pat dry. It's not going to smell good (pork never does at first) and will look a little sickly grey. Marinate the meat with some mushroom soy sauce and throw it in the wok with the heat on high. Now you have to turn the sides quickly and evenly so it browns nicely. I burnt the pork leg the first time I did this. You want the fatty skin to crust well and have that nice crisp. Fry for about 10 minutes.
Ok, here's the important part. After frying, dunk the pork leg into a big bowl of cold water. It's strange, but it works to trap in the flavors and makes the meat tender. Soak for about an hour.
The next step is to do a third round of cooking in the sauce. Making the sauce is easy, since it's mushroom based. Soak some dried Chinese mushroom in hot water (about a cup) and cut up some garlic and green onions in 1-2 inches pieces.
Heat up the wok again with some oil. Then sautee the garlic and green onion until it's awesome golden brown, add the mushroom water (now that the dried mushrooms have hydrated), throw in about half a cup of mushroom soy sauce, some rice cooking wine, about three or four cups of water and bring to a boil. Toss in another star anise and a bay leaf. Add in the pork leg and simmer for another 1-2 hours.
That's it. What you'll get is a really tenderized hunk of pork, with flavors accented by soy, mushroom and the exotic herbal whiff from the star anise. The meat will also be plenty sweet by now.. although I may toss in some sugar for the sauce in the future to see how it turns out.
Carve the pork and serve with steamed buns, slices of cucumber, cilantro and hoisin sauce. I like to add pepper flakes and relish to top it off. Delish.
I'm not in NY that much anymore, but these buns do remind me of one of my favorite restaurants – Dave Chang's Momofuku in the East Village, whose steamed pork buns are awesome.
