Stir-fry Smoked Pork Belly and Garlic Leaves

中文菜谱

蒜苗炒烟熏五花肉

Garlic leaves taste a lot like leeks, with a more intense garlicky and spicy flavor.  We usually use them in stir-fries.  I personally consider garlic leaves pair best with pork belly in stir-fries.  They help to get rid of mild hog flavor in pork belly, and add refreshing herbal spicy garlic flavor to the whole dish. 

Pork belly I use here has been marinated, smoked, briefly soaked and then stir-fried in a wok.  All the extra effort pays off in the end. 

For pork belly smoking：

1 large piece of pork belly (weighs about 3 pounds)
1 to 2 teaspoons Sichuan peppercorns
1 teaspoon thirteen spices powder
1/2 teaspoon sugar
3 to 4 tablespoon rice wine (sold in most Asian grocery stores)
salt to taste

Directions：

With a sharp knife, cut the pork belly into three thick slices.  Add Sichuan peppercorns, thirteen spices powder, sugar, rice wine and salt.  Rub the spices on to pork belly.

Cover with lid or plastic wrap.  Refrigerate for a couple days.

I twist some stainless steel paper clips to hook pork belly onto smoker racks.

Add smoking chips.  Preheat smoker to 200F/93C

Add pork belly

Smoke for about 2 hours.  Pork belly turns to beautiful golden amber color.

Please remember to tightly hook up the meat.  One of the three pieces slips off and half of it is burnt before I realize it.

When the smoked pork belly has been cooled down, we can slice and stir-fry it.

Ingredients：

Smoked pork belly
4 to 5 stalks of garlic plants
1 small piece of ginger root, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon Sichuan peppercorns
2 tablespoon Pixian chili paste
1 to 2 low sodium soy sauce
1 teaspoon oyster sauce
1/2 to 1 teaspoon sugar
a handful dried chili peppers, cut into pieces
1 to 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
salt to taste

Directions：

Clean and rinse the garlic leaves under running water.  Cut into 1 inch pieces.

They look and taste similar to leek, just smaller sized and come with a stronger flavor.

With a sharp knife, thinly slice the pork belly.  If they are too tough to slice, soak them in the water for twenty minutes.  That will help. 

Heat a cast iron wok over high heat.  Add oil, and then Sichuan peppercorns and chili peppers.  Sauté for 1 minute.  Add pork belly.

Stir fry for several minutes.  Pork belly turns golden brown.

Add garlic leaves, along with oyster sauce, soy sauce, sugar, Pixian chili paste and salt to taste. 

Stir fry until the garlic leaves turn into deep dark green color.  That means they have been cooked through.  Once they are cooked through, garlic leaves’ flavor become mild and sweet.

Serve hot immediately.

The dish is served in a cast iron shabu pot. I use a Staub universal base with a candle or fuel burner inside to keep the dish hot through whole dinner time.  Pork belly taste best when they are hot.

Compared to the non-smoked version, smoked pork belly packs richer, more complicated flavors.  And the texture is pleasantly al dente. 

Colorful Sweet Rice Cake Balls with Black Sesame Filling

中文菜谱：

流心黑芝麻彩色汤圆

The fifteen day of Chinese New Year is called Lantern Festival.  Lantern Festival Day is the last day of Chinese New Year celebration. On this day, we traditionally celebrate with lanterns and dance balls.  Families and friends get together to have another feast before going back to work. 

One of the traditional foods served on this feast is sweet rice cakes balls.  There are so many varieties of sweet rice cakes out there on the market that everyone can find his favorite flavor.  As for me, I love black sesame filling the most.  

It is not difficult to make them at home.  But I have been told many times that American people are not great fans of sticky sweet rice.  That is interesting.   If you are curious about rice cakes but don’t want to make them at home, go get one package in your local Asian grocery store.  They are sold in frozen food aisle.  The classic flavors are sesame, peanuts, red beans and jujube.

Ingredients for black sesames filling：

1 cup of raw black sesame seeds https://www.amazon.com/Kevala-Organic-Black-Sesame-Seeds/dp/B00LNNRUWY/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&qid=1520084974&sr=8-5&keywords=raw+black+sesame+seeds&linkCode=ll1&tag=yankitchentext-20&linkId=59a37c67c59b1c60942ce13962e405de
1 firmly packed brown sugar
4 to 6 tablespoons butter
1/4 to 1/3 cup water

Directions：

There are roasted sesame seeds available.  But I always prefer raw ones and pan roast them at home myself.  Its flavor and scent are so much better and stronger.

Shift raw sesame seeds a couple times. 

Heat a cast iron skillet on medium heat.  Add black sesame seeds.  Pan roast for several minutes.  Stir with a whisk from time to time.

 I always add a pinch of white sesame seeds to the pan too.  When white sesame seeds are starting to change color to light creamy beige, I know they are done.

Allow roasted sesame seeds to cool down to room temperature.  Finely grind them in a coffee grinder

Turn off the heat.  Add ground black sesame

Mix everything until well combined

Refrigerate for at least 4 hours.  The sesame filling will be harden when chilled.

Divide the filling into small pieces and roll into tiny sesame balls. 

Send them back to fridge for later use

When waiting for the sesame filling to chill, I prepare five pieces natural colorful sweet rice cake dough.

They are in fact quite easy to make.  Just mix vegetable puree, water, a few drops of vegetable oil and sweet rice cake flour and knead. 

The purple color comes from purple sweet potato; red color comes from beet puree; yellow one is from carrot puree; green one is from spinach puree and the brown one is from coco powder.

Divide the dough into small pieces.  Press each piece flat; add black sesame filling; wrap it up and roll into sweet rice cake balls.

Fill a large pot with water.  Cook over high heat until the water boils.  Add sweet rice cake balls.

 Cook on high heat until sweet rice cake balls float.

The black sesame filling becomes runny when cooked.  Isn’t it cool? O(∩_∩)O~

Dried Purple Sweet Potatoes

中文菜谱：

紫薯干

Dried purple sweet potatoes are one of my favorite snacks.  Unfortunately it is very hard to find tasty ones available in store.  I usually make them from scratch at home.  It is so simple and easy that even a person who doesn’t cook can manage it in no time.  O(∩_∩)O~

After drying, the natural sweetness in sweet potatoes is concentrated and enlightened.  Dried sweet potatoes become soft but chewy in a very pleasant way.  It is kind of like eating gummy candies, but with intense sweet potatoes flavors.

There are several kinds of purple sweet potatoes available in the market.  I have two varieties here plus some regular yellow color ones.

Rinse them well under running water. 

Set up a vegetable steamer in a large stainless steel pan.  Add sweet potatoes to the steamer. 

Add water.  Heat over high heat until the water boils.  Reduce the heat to medium and continue to steam for another 30 to 40 minutes.  Time needed depends on the size of sweet potatoes.  Larger ones will take longer to cook through.

This is one of my favorite purple sweet potatoes.  Look at that gorgeous the color inside and out!

Here is another kind purple sweet potato

Peel all the sweet potatoes.  Cut them into long trips, and place them half inch apart from each other on dehydrator racks.

Set the dehydrator to 135F/ 57C

Dehydrate them in dehydrator for 8 to 9 hours.  Again, the actual time needed depends on the size of sweet potatoes and personal preference for their softness/ chewiness. 

Remove sweet potato strips from dehydrator.  Store them in a large Ziploc bag overnight or for at least a couple hours, which helps to redistribute moisture within sweet potatoes strips and they would taste much better.  

These are my favorite.  They are sweet, gorgeous and have the best combination of softness and chewiness. 

These purple sweet potatoes which come with white skins taste a bit dry and starchy.  They are good, but not great.

The yellow ones taste very much like the ones from my childhood.  Love them too.

Homemade Black Sweet Rice Wine

中文菜谱:

黑糯米甜酒酿

It is a very traditional and common for Chinese people to make sweet rice wine at home.  But it is not really the clear-colored high alcohol content version of “rice wine” you are thinking.  It is non-distilled, very sweet, and more dessert like.

The most common one is made with pure white sweet rice.  Sometime people add different ingredients to make variations too.  This time I add black sweet rice.  After fermentation, it becomes a gorgeous deep purple color.

Ingredients:

1 cup of sweet rice
1 cup of black sweet rice
1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons of rice wine starter/ yeast, finely ground
cold boiled water
more water for rice cooking

Directions：

Cook the sweet rice and black sweet rice separately.  I use Zojirushi Micom stainless steel 3 cups rice cooker

Sweet rice absorbs less water than regular white rice.  So use a little bit less water when cooking sweet rice.  And I use “quick” setting.

The reason I cook two kinds of sweet rice separately is that I want them to keep their own colors. 

Wait for two different rice to be cooked and cooled down; add them to a large bowl; and mix gently with a spatula. 

Sweet rice can be very sticky when cooled down.  That is where cold boiled water comes in. 

Rice wine starter/yeast is very popular and common in Asian countries.  You should be able to buy it from any Asian grocery stores.  They are usually sold in a small plastic package which contains two round rice yeast balls.  Smash and grind them into fine white powder before adding them to sweet rice.

Sprinkle sweet rice mixture with rice wine starter/ yeast powder.  Gently mix everything together again.  

Pat the rice flat, leaving a one-inch hole in the center.  The hole is totally operational.  You don’t have to do it.  It is just a lot easier to observe how much rice wine coming out the rice through that hole in the center.  

Cover with lid or plastic wrap.  Store it in warm dry place for 2 to 3 days. 

At the end of fermentation time, you can test if sweet rice wine is ready or not by its taste.  Sweetness is how we tell.  The sweeter, the better.  If you get blank taste, just put it back, wait for another day, and taste again.

Sweet rice wine can be served immediately when it is completely fermented, and yes, both liquid and the rice part.  My favorite way is to refrigerate it overnight and serve it cold. 

In my hometown, people used to make pickle vegetables with sweet rice wine in old times.  But fewer and fewer families are still doing so.  Vinegar is quicker and less labor intensive. 

Sweet rice wine can be served cold and hot.  Cooking it with sweet rice cake balls is another classic way to enjoy it. 

Braised smoked Pig Tails in Soy Sauce

中文菜谱：香浓软糯的烟熏猪尾

Tails are another one of my favorite parts from a hog.  They don’t look like much.  But the texture and taste are both awesome.  They are similar to ox tails, but smaller, sometimes leaner, and usually sold with skin on. 

They can be cooked in soup, braised, or deep fried.  Different cooking method would bring out different flavors.  After trying most cooking ways I can think of, smoking-and-then-braising becomes my new favorite way to cook them.

nlike what I used to buy from market back in China, the tails sold in America grocery market are much shorter, thicker and fattier.  Hours of smoking process can help to get rid of excessive pork fat.

Ingredients：

2 packages of pig tails (weighs around 3 to 4 pounds)
1 large piece of ginger root, smashed
1 to 2 teaspoons oyster sauce
2 to 3 tablespoons rice cooking wine
1/4 to 1/3 cup of soy sauce
1/2  to 1 teaspoon dark soy sauce
2 tablespoons rock cane sugar
1 to 2 teaspoons Sichuan peppercorns
3 to 4 star anises
3 to 4 pieces of dried ginger
2 to 3 cloves
 a handful dried chili peppers
salt to taste
water for cleaning and cooking

Directions：

Preheat smoker to 250F/121C

Cleaning pig tails under running water.  Pat dry with kitchen paper towel.  Smoke them in smoker for 3 to 4 hours. 

The exterior becomes dry, crunchy and crispy.  Most excessive fat has dripped away in smoking process.

I smoke some pork belly along with tails.  Look how pretty they are

Add smoked tails to a cast iron pot, along with water, spices and seasonings.  Cook over high heat until water boils.  Reduce heat to simmer for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. 

Turn the heat back to high, add salt to taste, and cook until most liquid evaporates.

Serve immediately

Tails are amazing part from hogs.  They are mostly bones and skins, not much meat attaching to them.  After long hours’ simmering and braising in soy sauce and spices, the lean meat part is soft and moist; and the skin part is soft and slightly chewy and al dente. 

Bon Appetite!