Twice-Cooked Pork

Ingredients

• 500g skin-on pork belly in one piece
• 3 slices ginger
• 1 spring onion, halved
• 1 tbsp Shaoxing wine
• 2 Chinese leeks or 3 leeks, cut on a steep angle into 4cm pieces
• 1 green pepper, cut into rough squares
• 2 tbsp Pixian chilli bean paste, chopped
• 1 tbsp sweet flour paste (tianmianjiang) or hoisin
• 1 tsp fermented black beans, rinsed
• 1 tbsp neutral oil
• 1 tsp light soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp ground roasted Sichuan pepper

Before you cook

• Rinse the pork belly and scrape the skin clean
• Cut the leeks on a steep diagonal and separate the thick white parts from the green
• Chop the chilli bean paste finely
• Have a bowl of iced water ready for cooling the cooked pork

Steps

1. Put the pork belly in a saucepan with the ginger, spring onion and Shaoxing wine, and cover it with cold water.
2. Bring the water to the boil, skim off the grey foam, then lower the heat and simmer gently for twenty-five minutes until a chopstick slides into the meat with slight resistance.
3. Lift the pork out, drop it into iced water for five minutes, then pat it dry.
4. Chill the pork in the fridge for at least fifteen minutes so it firms up enough to slice cleanly.
5. Cut the pork across the grain into slices as thin as a coin, keeping the skin, fat and meat together in each slice.
6. Heat the oil in a wok over high heat until it just begins to smoke.
7. Lay in the pork slices and fry them, stirring, until the fat turns translucent and the edges curl up like little cups, about three minutes.
8. Tip out all but two tablespoons of the rendered fat.
9. Lower the heat, push the pork to one side, and add the chilli bean paste, sweet flour paste and black beans to the hot fat.
10. Stir the pastes until the oil runs red and smells sweet and toasty, about forty seconds, then fold the pork back through.
11. Add the leek whites and green pepper and stir-fry over high heat for ninety seconds.
12. Add the leek greens, soy sauce and sugar, and toss until the greens have just wilted.
13. Turn off the heat, sprinkle over the ground Sichuan pepper, and serve at once with plain rice.