Pine Nut Braised Pork
Pine Nut Braised Pork (Beijing cuisine) — pork belly with skin roasted and scraped, crosshatch-scored, stuffed with a pine nut and pork filling, battered, and deep-fried.
Ingredients
Pork (preferably pork belly)
1 kg
Fried pine nuts (crushed)
50 g
Eggs
3
Vegetable oil (about 50g actually used)
800 g
Dry starch
20 g
Wet starch
100 g
Rock sugar
500 g
Chicken broth
600
Cooking wine
120 g
Soy sauce
140 g
Seasoning (suspected MSG)
to taste
Scallion
30 g
Ginger
40 g
Instructions
1
Step 1
Slice the pork horizontally through the middle to open it into two halves. Take the half with the skin and roast it over an open flame to char the skin, then soak it in warm water until soft. Scrape it clean with a knife and pat dry. With the skin facing down, score the fat layer into deep diagonal grid patterns.
2
Step 2
Cut the other half (without skin) of the fatty pork into small diced pieces, mince the lean pork, and place them together in a bowl. Add the pine nuts, eggs (2), cooking wine (30 g), ginger (30 g), wet starch (40 g), and mix into a soft meat filling.
3
Step 3
Spread a layer of starch paste over the scored fat layer, then spread the prepared meat filling flat on top. Use a knife to gently tap so the filling seeps into the grooves, then smooth the edges and top of the filling to match the original shape of the meat.
4
Step 4
Whisk egg (1) and the remaining wet starch into a batter, and spread it on all sides of the square pork and on the filling side.
5
Step 5
Pour the vegetable oil into a wok, heat it over high heat, and place the square pork in with the skin facing down (the original text breaks off here).
