Chef Chow Hung · Master Hung BBQ Restaurant
THE ORIGINAL recipe, which is meant for a 40-pound suckling pig, involves Chef Hung turning and roasting the pig by hand over an open fire for the finishing touch. He has modified this recipe for home cooking. Although this dish seems to require almost a half a day to make, the actual preparation and baking times are very manageable. And the end result is definitely worth the effort!
Look for small packets of ground lesser galangal in the spice aisle, maltose in jars in the sugar aisle and jars or cans of brown bean sauce in the sauce aisle of Asian markets.
5 lbs pork belly, skin attached
6 tsp white sugar
2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp five-spice powder
2 Tbsp ground lesser galangal (or ginger)
3 Tbsp white vinegar
1 Tbsp red rice vinegar
1 Tbsp Shaoxing rice wine
4 oz mei gui lu (rose essence Chinese cooking wine)
4 oz maltose
2 Tbsp oyster sauce
2 Tbsp brown bean sauce
1 Tbsp hoisin sauce
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
IN A MEDIUM stockpot, bring pork belly and 10 cups water to a boil on high heat. Reduce the heat to medium and boil for 45 minutes. Transfer pork to a large container and place under cold running water until pork is cold to the touch. Remove from the water, drain and pat dry.
In a small bowl, combine 3 tsp of the sugar, salt, five-spice powder and galangal (or ginger). Using your hands, rub this mixture evenly over the pork. Place pork on a platter and allow to rest for 40 minutes. In a medium saucepan, combine white vinegar, red rice vinegar, Shao-xing wine, mei gui lu wine and maltose. Bring to a boil on medium-low, then remove from the heat.
Rinse pork under running water, pat dry with paper towels and brush evenly with the vinegar-wine mixture. Allow to rest on a wire rack at room temperature for 3 hours. Reserve the remaining vinegar-wine mixture in the saucepan.
Preheat the oven to 375°F. Place pork, skin side up, on a greased wire rack set inside a baking pan. With a dessert fork, poke 2 or 3 columns of 4 to 6 rows of tiny holes in the pork skin. This allows air to escape from the meat and makes the skin crunchy. Bake for 90 minutes, basting pork with the remaining vinegar-wine mixture every 20 minutes until it is used up.
Before removing baked pork from the oven, increase the heat to broil and bake for 6 to 8 minutes until skin turns reddish brown. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool for 10 minutes.
In a small saucepan, bring oyster sauce, bean sauce, hoisin sauce, Worcestershire sauce, the remaining 3 tsp sugar and 2 Tbsp water to a gentle boil on medium heat. Stir and cook for 30 seconds, then remove from the heat. This is the dipping sauce. Transfer to a large sauce bowl.
Chop pork into bite-size pieces, transfer to a large platter and serve with dipping sauce.