Changsha Pork Sliver Rice Noodles

Ingredients

• 1 kg pork bones, preferably with some marrow
• 400 g pork shoulder or front leg, in one piece
• 40 g fresh ginger
• 4 spring onions
• 2 tbsp Shaoxing wine
• 1 star anise
• 1 small piece cassia bark
• 2 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 1 tsp caster sugar
• 2 tbsp lard
• 600 g fresh round rice noodles, or 300 g dried
• 4 tbsp Hunan chilli oil with sediment
• 6 tbsp pickled long beans or pickled mustard stem, chopped
• 2 tsp fine salt
• 1/2 tsp ground white pepper

Before you cook

• Cover the pork bones with cold water in a large pot and set them aside while you prepare everything else.
• Cut the pork shoulder into slices a centimetre thick, then into slivers the thickness of a pencil.
• Slice half the ginger into coins and finely shred the rest.
• Cut two spring onions into lengths and finely slice the other two.

Steps

1. Bring the pot of bones to a boil and let it bubble hard for three minutes so the scum rises.
2. Drain the bones and rinse them under the tap until the water runs clear.
3. Return the bones to the clean pot with three litres of fresh cold water, the ginger coins and the spring onion lengths.
4. Bring it to a boil, then drop the heat so the surface barely trembles and cook for two hours.
5. Melt the lard in a heavy pan over medium heat.
6. Add the shredded ginger and fry for twenty seconds until it smells sweet.
7. Tip in the pork slivers and stir them for three minutes, until they lose their raw colour and any water has boiled off.
8. Splash in the Shaoxing wine and let it hiss away.
9. Add both soy sauces, the sugar, the star anise and the cassia bark.
10. Ladle in enough of the simmering bone broth to just cover the meat.
11. Cover the pan and braise gently for fifty minutes, until the slivers are soft enough to break with a chopstick.
12. Strain the finished bone broth into a clean pan, season it with the salt and white pepper, and keep it at a simmer.
13. Bring a separate pot of water to a rolling boil and cook the rice noodles until just tender, about ninety seconds for fresh.
14. Drain the noodles and divide them between four deep bowls.
15. Ladle the hot broth over the noodles until they are submerged.
16. Spoon the braised pork and a little of its dark braising liquid over each bowl.
17. Finish each with chilli oil, pickled long beans and sliced spring onion, and serve at once.