This is a dish famous for being Mao Zedong's favorite. My wife is also from Xiangtan, Hunan, Mao's hometown, and thus my mother in law makes a mean hongshao rou herself. This is how she makes it.
Ingredients:
1-2 lbs. pork belly (with or without skin. She leaves the skin on and it's amazing, so if you ask my preference, that's it.)
2 tbsp. peanut oil
2 tbsp. white sugar
Shaoxing wine (this can be found in any Asian market - it's a type of rice wine for cooking)
A thumb sized piece of ginger, sliced up.
1 star anise
Dried red chili peppers (I usually use 3, but you can add as many as you like. Hunanese folks are like Chinese Cajuns and they love hot stuff)
A stick of cinnamon
Soy sauce
Green onions /spring onions
Ok, here goes:
Boil some water in a big pot. Put the pork belly in and let it do it's thing for 4 minutes or so.
Take it out and let it drain and cool down. You can then slice it up into bite size pieces, but remember to slice it to where there is a nice proportion of meat, fat, and skin on each piece.
Take a large pot (I use a cast iron dutch oven, which is perfect for this) and heat the peanut oil and the sugar. Stir it and let the sugar caramelize. Don't let it burn. Burnt sugar taste will ruin your meal big time.
Once it's brown though, add a couple generous splashes of shaoxing wine and stir a couple times.
Throw in the pork, star anise, cinnamon, ginger, and chile peppers. Add enough water to just cover the pork. Turn the heat up and let it boil. Once it boils, bring the heat back down to low and cover it and let it simmer for 45 minutes or so.
Check it occasionally. You don't want the water to run out.
After about 45 minutes you can check and adjust the taste with soy sauce and sugar. Turn the heat up to reduce the liquid further. You want it to almost be like a sticky bbq sauce, but just a little runny.
At that point it's done and you can cut up some of the green onions to sprinkle on top.
If I can find the time, I will translate more of her recipes. She left us a huge stack of handwritten cards on one of her visits.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk