Where is the special dish of braised pork?
Hunan
As long as I can remember, whenever there is a happy event at home, my mother will make a plate of braised pork to celebrate. In the 1980s, eating braised pork was the patent of the rich. Father earns money to support his family, and mother works everywhere to supplement the family. The family's economic situation is so tight that they can only eat meat during the New Year. When I was a child, my brother and I were on our way home from school when we saw someone munching on braised pork. My brother stopped and watched greedily. He smelled the meat and his mouth watered. When I got home, my brother clamored for braised pork. My mother said that braised pork would be a reward as long as I got double marks in the final exam. Mom and dad both work in Wuchang, leaving early and returning late every day, neglecting discipline. My brother and I are like wild children, we don't go home after school, our homework is average, and we never get double marks.
Once there was a parent-teacher meeting, and my father went to attend. The head teacher doesn't know what to say. When he got home, he changed his usual bad temper and kindly said to my brother and me, how about starting today, as long as you two brothers and sisters can complete the study tasks assigned by me, I will pay for the pork and my mother will be responsible. My brother and I were curious to ask my father what to study. Dad took out a piece of writing paper, which was full of words. After reading it, he immediately collapsed: recite a poem or a word every day, practice two pages of pen and ink every day, read a book every week, and write after reading it. My brother shook his head in protest. I'm only in grade one. I don't know many words and I can't write. Dad said that my sister would teach you to read, and the words you can't write should be replaced by pinyin. He also said that you should check it every few days. If you fail, you will be fined, and the braised pork will be gone! In order to eat braised pork, my brother and I got rid of the habit of playing after school, finished our homework and supervised each other. I am three years older than my brother, and I am more educated. I imitated the teacher's tone, took a feather duster and kindly forced my brother to recite poems. I read one sentence, my brother reads one sentence, and my brother writes one sentence silently. I read Andersen's fairy tales and Grimm's fairy tales, one a day. My brother is a boy, and writing is too painful for him. I will finish writing myself first, and then imitate his handwriting and finish writing two pages of him. Every time my father checked, I was lucky to pass the exam, and my brother was miserable. Fortunately, my mother said obliquely that my brother should learn from his sister. In order to fulfill his promise, dad bought a big piece of pork belly after work. My mother was distressed and spent another quarter of her salary. The father sighed: the children have grown up, so buy some meat to mend their bodies. I didn't see that both brother and sister were so thin! When my mother brought the braised pork to the table, my brother and I couldn't wait to put a piece of meat in and ate it with relish. Mom and dad watched us eat, and their eyes were full of smiles. I didn't eat fat, I only ate lean meat and spit it out. My mother saw it and shouted, how can you waste this girl? Dad stopped his mother's growl, picked up chopsticks and put the fat in a bowl to comfort me. He will give it to me directly and never eat fat again. Since then, my father has been picking out the fat I don't want to eat. One day I asked my dad: Don't you dislike the saliva on my braised pork? Dad smiled: How can a father dislike his daughter's saliva? Now that my father is old, his teeth are not as good as before. Lean meat can't be chewed, he only chooses fat meat to eat. My mother is afraid that he will eat too much and lead to hyperlipidemia, so she hardly cooks braised pork. Every time my father comes to my house to play, I will cook a plate of braised pork for his old man to satisfy his appetite. Just like when I was a child, I would spend a quarter of my salary on pork belly to reward my brother and me.
I am a careless woman, and I seldom express my feelings for my father, and my father is even less good at expressing them. In my impression, my father communicates well with relatives and friends outside, but there seems to be nothing to communicate with me and my brother at home. Thankfully, as long as he is not busy, he takes my brother and me to the movies, teaches painting, plays erhu and goes shopping for food. I'm older, and he's too busy to care about me. Maybe he's afraid I'll go out with my brother. He bought an electronic piano for my brother, went to the literary columns of Changjiang Daily and Wuhan Evening News every day, bought pens, brushes, ink and copybooks, and forced me to practice calligraphy. Awed by his prestige, my brother and I honestly studied, played the piano, practiced calligraphy and did our homework. At that time, he was bored to death Why should I study at home when other children go out to play? Even if my composition is no matter how good and my calligraphy has improved, he seldom praises it. My brother and I have never been affirmed by our father since childhood, and basically grew up in self-confidence and frustration. As an adult, I finally understood his painstaking efforts: reading is to improve knowledge and thinking ability, practicing calligraphy is to train patience and perseverance, and not boasting is to be self-aware and frustrated.
Often I will speed up my progress because of the burden of life, neglect my health because of my love of beauty, and neglect my time because I waste my time on words. And there is a person who doesn't care about my beauty, my calligraphy, my success or failure. He only cares about whether I eat well, rest well and live a happy life. Every time I go home, I am used to looking for my mother first. My father is always busy for me with uncontrollable joy. Every time he answers the phone, he always greets a few words first, then turns around and hands it to his mother. He always replaces a thousand words with silence. He doesn't talk much and doesn't laugh often, but I know he hides all his love so that I can go into battle lightly, while the eyes of love are always watching.
Braised pork is the best thing in my childhood and adolescent memory. Mother used the method of braised pork in Shanghai, and cooked it with white sugar and soy sauce. I inherited my mother's practice and tried to innovate on this basis. Braised pork is literally cooked with soy sauce, but it is very particular about methods to cook this meat delicious. Here's what I did:
Fat and thin pork belly
Welsh onion
Rock sugar, pepper, star anise, cinnamon
dark soy sauce
Prepare about 2 kg of pork belly, green onions, rock sugar, soy sauce and aniseed.
Pork belly cut into pieces
Blanched pork belly
Cut the pork belly into pieces, blanch it with cold water, remove impurities and drain the water for later use.
Stir-fry in the oil pan
Heat the pot, stir-fry pork belly until golden brown, add rock sugar and stir-fry to color, add onion, pepper, star anise and cinnamon, continue to stir-fry, and add soy sauce to taste.
Pour a bowl of water, submerge the pork belly, bring to a boil and simmer. When there is still one-third water in the pot, add salt to taste, and when there is a little water left, collect the juice over high fire.
After the dish is served, you can decorate it with some side dishes, which looks good. Pork belly should be fat but not greasy, crispy and delicious, simmer for an hour, and don't put the salt too early. When the pork belly is cooked, put salt, and the lean meat will not dry hard.
Dad especially likes to eat my braised pork, boasting that I cook better than my mother and keep my skin elastic. Because the fat is squeezed out by stir-frying, the lean meat has no smell of dry wood, the rock sugar and soy sauce are properly mixed into the gravy, and the pepper and aniseed are volatilized at will. The satisfaction of being full of oil bears witness to the most sincere feelings between our father and daughter!