Description:Personally, I think don't think this is healthy... But heck, it's very very delicious and irresistible! The history of this dish actually came from mixing lard over rice :) to fill the bellies of poor farmer kids. It's evolved into a delicacy!
Prep Time: 20 mins
Cook Time: 1 hrs
Ingredients:
1/2 lb of fatty pork chunk, (looks like bacon chunk).
*substitute: 1/2 lb fatty ground pork
2 Tablespoons fried red shallots
2 Tablespoons of minced garlic
6 cups of clear broth
2 star anise
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup cooking rice wine
2 Tablespoons of sugar
1 cup soysauce
*1/4 cup shitake mushrooms*
*hardboiled eggs*
Instructions:
- If you're using ground pork, you can skip the next step. But you'll have to prepare 6 cups of clear broth.
- Boil the pork chuck until fully cooked. Dice into tiny pieces. Save 6 cups of this broth and set it aside.
- Add oil to pot and turn on high heat.
- Add garlic and dried red onions, then sugar, soy sauce, wine, and broth into the pot.
- Once the broth boils, add the meat and shitake mushrooms. Simmer for about an hour. You can add the hardboiled eggs about 30 mins after the meat.
- At this point, there should be a layer of oil on the surface of the stew. Scoop this out, it's yucky.
- Serve over a bowl of rice along with a stewed egg and even a Chinese pickle.
Fatty Pork Chunks 五花肉This type of meat is really just Bacon, but in bigger chucks. If you use bacon, it's sliced too thin. Some oriental markets have these chopped, some don't. If you can't find them chopped, just buy a chunk of fatty pork (the kind with many layers of fat that looks like bacon in a big chunk) and chop them yourself or use a food processor, but don't grind them too much!
Shitake MushroomThis is the most popular mushroom used in Taiwan. They have a stronger aroma than the regular mushrooms and usually come dried in a package that you can pick up in oriental markets. To chop them, simply soak them in warm water for a few mins and they'll turn soft. If you absolutely can't find these, you can replace them with any other mushrooms.
Star AniseStar anise is a type of Asian spice. It also comes in powder form. You can pick them up in any oriental supermarket.
This is fried shallot. It is a very important ingredient in this recipe because of it's flavor and armoa. You can buy this from any oriental market and it usually comes in a plastic can. However, if you keep this too long, it will start to smell like old oil. So you can try to use it up by sprinkling some in any Chinese soup.
