Kitchenella: The secrets of women: heroic, simple, nurturing cookery - for everyone. Rose Prince
She attempted to start an organic pig farm in mainland China but found there is still no receptiveness to welfare-friendly, naturally reared meat, even after some of China’s recent food scares. Her plans for the farm are on hold. ‘They [Chinese cooks] still cannot see the beauty of slow growth and using better breeds for flavour and meat quality,’ she told me, sadly.
Leong is a devoted family cook. I met her through her son, an orthopaedic surgeon working in a London hospital. When I went to collect one of his mother’s books from his home, he was preparing her Red Braised Belly Pork. He gave me a tub of red fermented bean curd, an evil-looking paste oozing a thin red liquid that is essential for this dish. Adding it to the braised meat at the end of cooking changed everything. The children came into the kitchen, sniffing the aromas with fascination. Watching them fall upon the food was almost frightening and they still ask often for Annie’s red pork. Her recipe, which can be found along with many other good ones in her book At Home with Annie, is quite detailed. This is a shorter version.
The secret to the success of this dish is to buy pork with a good layer of fat and to fry it for a long time until the fat is mostly rendered away and the pork pieces turn crisp. I find the meat crisps better when I use free-range pork from slower-grown pigs.
SERVES 4
1kg/2lb 4oz fat pork belly, cut away from the ribs and strip of lean meat – use this to make spare ribs, for another meal
4 tablespoons sunflower or groundnut oil
4 tablespoons Demerara sugar or palm sugar
500ml/18fl oz water
10 spring onions, sliced
2cm/¾in piece fresh ginger, sliced
4 tablespoons soy sauce
pinch of salt
2 tablespoons Shaoxing wine (or pale dry sherry, such as fino)
1 star anise
1 teaspoon red fermented bean curd
1 black cardamom
Bring a pan of water to the boil, add the pork and simmer for 10 minutes. Drain and pat dry, then cut into bite-sized pieces. Put 2 tablespoons of the oil in the pan and fry the pork over a medium heat, browning it on all sides until golden and crisp – this will take about 10 minutes and the fat should render away. Remove from the pan with a slotted spoon. Discard the fat, or save in a bowl to use for roasting potatoes. Wipe the pan clean with a cloth. Put half the sugar into the pan with 1 further tablespoon of the oil. Place over the heat and allow the oil to bubble with the sugar and caramelise, turning golden brown. Remove from the heat and add the water – be careful, because it will sizzle. Bring to the boil – you should have a thin caramel-flavoured liquid – then pour into a jug or bowl and set aside. Wipe the pan clean again.
Put the final tablespoon of oil into the pan with the onions and ginger and fry gently until fragrant and soft. Add the soy sauce, salt and wine and then the pork. Cover with the sugar stock, add the star anise, fermented bean curd and black cardamom. Braise in an open pan for 1½ hours until the pork is tender. The sauce will reduce and you may need to add a few tablespoons of water. In the last 5 minutes, add the remaining 2 tablespoons sugar and boil faster so the sauce is syrupy. Remove the black cardamom and star anise (I sometimes tie these two spices up in a bundle of muslin, because children hate to find them in their food). Serve with plain boiled rice (see page 405) or clay-pot rice (see below).
Clay-pot rice with rice crackling
Another of Annie Leong’s recipes, delicious on its own with some stir-fried broccoli or pak choi, or with the red pork above. Use a cast-iron casserole with a lid or a lidded ceramic dish that is hob-proof. Annie uses Thai fragrant rice for this recipe but Chinese long grain is also suitable.
SERVES 4
225g/8oz Thai fragrant rice
1 teaspoon sunflower or groundnut oil
1 teaspoon white rice vinegar
½ teaspoon salt
180–250ml/6–9fl oz water
To make rice crackling: 1–2 tablespoons sunflower or groundnut oil
Put the rice in a bowl, cover with cold water and rub it with your fingers to wash the excess starch away. Drain in a fine sieve then put back in the bowl with the oil, vinegar and salt. Stir and leave to stand for 20 minutes.
Put the rice in the casserole and pour in the water. Bring to the boil, cover with a lid and allow to bubble vigorously for 5 minutes. This is important as it helps the exterior of the rice grain form a protective layer around the interior so that the rice remains firm despite the longer cooking time. After 3 minutes, lift the lid and stir the rice with a metal spoon, scraping the bottom of the pot. Cover and simmer for another 5 minutes.
Remove from the heat, lift the lid once more (there should still be a few drops of water bubbling on the surface) and stir the rice for the last time. To make the crackling, carefully pour 1–2 tablespoons oil down the sides of the casserole – a little in each place. It should dribble down to the base of the pan. Cover the pot again and place over a low heat and cook for another 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and rest the rice, keeping the lid on, for 5 minutes.
The real thing, borrowed from Fuchsia Dunlop, who found this recipe on her travels in Yangzhou, China. In her book, Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper, Dunlop, a British journalist, writes of the conflict between her love of Chinese cooking and concerns about the quality of the ingredients used in China itself. Finding the original special fried rice in its birthplace, Yangzhou, she also found tender shoots of change, with some of her companions talking about eating less but ‘greener’ ingredients – something to cheer Annie Leong (see page 88). Explaining that the hardships of China’s revolutionary twentieth century had bred a greed for plenty (not unlike the bad food habits that came after World War II in Britain), Dunlop finishes her book with a note of optimism and this recipe, which is delightfully clean and delicate. Great mountains of this economical and satisfying dish have been served to my son and his hungry friends, getting rave reviews. It is a great dish for using up leftovers.
SERVES 6–8, DEPENDING ON APPETITE
8 tablespoons groundnut oil
1 raw pork neck fillet, cut into small pieces (or use pork mince)
2 tablespoons defrosted peeled prawns (squeeze out excess water), chopped
2 tablespoons chopped cooked ham
1 cooked chicken breast or leg, chopped
2 tablespoons sliced bamboo shoot (from a can, drained)
2 tablespoons Shaoxing wine (or pale dry sherry, such as fino)
400ml/14fl oz chicken stock
salt (optional)
2 eggs, beaten
1.3kg/3lb cold cooked Thai fragrant rice
2 tablespoons frozen petits pois or podded edamame (soya) beans, defrosted (optional)
6 spring onions, green part only, sliced
Heat half the oil in a large pan or wok and stir-fry the raw pork and prawns briefly, until the meat is pale. Add the ham, chicken and bamboo shoot and fry 1 minute longer. Add the wine and stock and bring to the boil, season with a little salt if necessary. (I don’t, usually, because of the ham.) Set to one side in a bowl and clean the pan.
Heat the remaining oil in the pan and add the eggs. Swirl with a wooden spatula to scramble the eggs a little, then add the rice. Stir-fry over a medium heat until the rice is hot. Try not to brown it, however. Fold in the prepared ingredients,