INGREDIENTS

INSTRUCTIONS

The following passage is from "Chinese Gastronomy", one of the best
books on Chinese cuisine I've ever seen.  It beautifully expresses  the
nearly metaphysical regard that the Chinese have for food and  eating
and is delightful reading even if you never cook a single  recipe from
it. This dish is incredibly good, considering that its  main
ingredients are pork fat and skin.  The fat is not something to  be
gotten rid of in this case. It's treasured for what it is.  Like I
said, this is something that I don't cook often but it's a special
occasion when I do.  This is one of my all time favorites.  I serve it
with a bowl of  Chinese mustard and a bowl of chopped green onions for
dipping.  At one time the butcher shops of Soochow were variously
called Genuine  Straw Mat, Original Straw Mat, Old Straw Mat, etc.,
just because  there is a story about an Immortal in disguise who flung
a bit of mat  into a pot of belly pork to give it a special fragrance.
The  fragrance is easy enough to produce.  What is important is that it
stands out in a clear field. Instead of being heavy, the pork should
appear light; clean instead of messy; smooth instead of lumpy.  The
flavour of pork is effusive. While the cooking of chicken and beef
means the careful carving out of its best flavour from the raw
material, the flavours of pork must be restrained. At its best, pork
is tender, sweet, fragrant, tasty, rich without being oily (in other
words, nun, hsien, hsiang, nung, yu-er-pu-ni).  A geometrically precise
square of belly pork is stewed and then  steamed in a little sauce, so
that it is served with an absolutely  clear layer of melted fat
overlying a smooth brown sauce.  The  surface is a rich brown colour,
the fat smooth and custard-like, the  meat brown and tender. The square
of fat was named after Su Tungpo,  the poet, for unknown reasons.
Perhaps it is just because he would  have like it.  The square of fat
is regarded with much passion,  tenderness and expectation.
Second-rate versions of it appear everywhere, differing from the
following version by their failure to clear the field for the  delicacy
of the pork fat which, if prepared accordingly, tastes fresh  and clean
like fresh (sweet) butter.  In order to keep the flavour  clear, the
meat is first salted to remove the bloody juices, blanched  to remove
the scum, then stewed very slowly, and finally steamed for  hours to
tenderize the fat slowly.  Inferior versions this are made  by stewing
pork for a few hours without steaming it...  The result is  lumpy fat.
If the salt rub and blanching are omitted the juice  becomes messy and
lumpy. The simplicity of appearance, smoothness and  clarity of flavour
have to be wrested from the manifold flavours of  pork.  Tungpo Pork is
customarily served at the end of a meal with bowls of  rice. People
sigh, shout and groan with happiness when they see it.  This is one of
the pinnacles of gastronomy, and sums up the  application of fat in
Chinese cuisine.  Trim pork into a precise square.  Wash it and wipe it
dry with a  towel. Rub it with salt and let it stand for about 2 hours.
Discard  the blood-tinged liquid.  Bring 5 pints (12 cups) water to a
boil and blanch the meat in it.  Rinse it free of scum and repeat the
blanching with a fresh portion  of boiling water.  Place the pork skin
side up in a pot with a  tight-fitting lid, adding soy sauce, wine,
spring onions ginger and 2  tablespoons water. Bring to the boil, then
reduce the heat to very  low and simmer for 2 hours, adding a little
more water if necessary.  Keep the amount of liquid as small as
possible, and do not keep  uncovering the pot to see how the pork is
progressing.  Let it stew  in its own juices.  Discard the spring
onions and ginger.  Place the square skin side  down on a dish of soup
plate dimensions, add the juices and cover it  very closely with foil,
cellophane or an overlapping plate.  Steam it  for 4 hours, until the
fat is tender and can be cut with a spoon.  Invert the square so that
the fat is uppermost, and pour the juices  around it carefully.  From
"Chinese Gastronomy" by Hsiang Ju Lin and Tsuifeng Lin, First
Harvest/HBJ, New York, 1977.  Introduction by Lin Yutang.  Posted by
Stephen Ceideberg; April 1 1992.  File
ftp://ftp.idiscover.co.uk/pub/food/mealmaster/recipes/cberg2.zip

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Nutrition (calculated from recipe ingredients)
----------------------------------------------
Calories: 2967
Calories From Fat: 2712
Total Fat: 300.7g
Cholesterol: 408.2mg
Sodium: 1254.2mg
Potassium: 1198.6mg
Carbohydrates: 5.1g
Fiber: 1.1g
Sugar: 1.3g
Protein: 55.2g