Slow Cooked Pork Belly With Fennels

Food channel is almost the default channel if there's nothing interesting on TV. It was Gordon Ramsay's Cookery Course the other day and there was this pork belly recipe on this episode. I like pork belly a lot! There are so many dishes in China that are made with pork belly, like pork belly stew with eggs, braised pork belly, crispy baked pork belly... so many and so tasty. It's a cheap cut of meat, but the balance of the fat and meat gives such wonderful aroma towards the dish. One bite and a mouthful of goodness!

I've cooked pork belly so many times, but most of the time I chop it in small chunks and make a stew with it. The one on Ramsay's show is a total new way for me. One whole piece of pork belly seared to crisp the skin first and then slow cook in dutch oven with vegetables and white wine. Sounds even simpler than how I used to do it. With a little baby around, this can not be any better!

I usually get pork belly in Chinese supermarkets here. Look for the piece that has even layers of fat and meat, with bone or without it doesn't matter. Too much fat, the dish will be just too oily and disgusting; too little fat then it won't be that juicy.

Step one, use a sharp knife to score the skin of the meat. Rub a generous handful of sea salt and pepper on the skin. In this way, when you pan sear the skin, it will get crispy. Add vegetable oil in a sauce pan and bring to high heat. Sear the meat with skin side down until it's golden and crispy.

  

Then, cut the vegetables in big pieces. I use one fennel, one large onion, carrots and celery stalks.  In a large dutch oven or other oven safe pot, stir fry the vegetables for a few minutes until the flavor comes out. Add fennel seeds, star anise, pepper and put the pork belly on top of the veggies. Add white wine and let it cook until the liquid reduces to half. Add chicken broth to just underneath the skin. If the liquid covers the skin then it won't be crispy.

Preheat the oven to 250F and let it cook for 2.5 hours, lid off. Simple and delicious!

For gravy, use the juice in the pot. Add one heap tablespoon of dijon mustard, two tablespoons of honey and a little bit soy sauce. Whisk in some corn starch dissolved in a little bit water and simmer until the juice reaches a gravy consistency.

Snow Skin Moon Cake

I love living in Toronto. It’s a city full of diversity and multiple cultures: China town, Korean town, little Italy, Greek area, you name it. Chinese immigrants, or Cantonese to be specific, take a huge portion of the population in Toronto. That is because Hong Kong used to be colonized by British government and Canada being under the same system of British Commonwealth before, it is where Hongkongese chose to travel or live. Ever since 1997 that Chinese government took over the regime of Hong Kong from the British government, a larger number of Hongkongese immigrated in Canada perhaps due to the uncertainty towards the new system.  Immigrants bring their culture here, traditions, language, especially food. When I just arrived in Toronto in 2009, I was nothing but astonished to learn that I can pretty much find all kinds of traditional Chinese stuff here! I’ve had authentic Chinese food in some small restaurants here, found special spice in the Chinese supermarket, bought ingredients that I would never imagine to see out of China, and this time got a moon cake pressing mold so that I can make moon cakes for the Mid-Autumn Festival. Ah, how can I not enjoy living here?

ABOUT MID-AUTUMN FESTIVAL

There are quite a few of stories about the origination of this festival, some are about a love story,  some are based on real historical events. I am not sure which one is the right one, only knowing that the festival falls on the fifteenth day of August on a lunar calendar. It is said the moon is the biggest and roundest that night and family always gather together having dinner and watching the moon while having moon cake.

ABOUT MOON CAKE

Just like the name, it’s a dessert that brings your imagination of the moon.  There are different types of moon cakes on the market. The Cantonese style, the most traditional one, is a baked cake stuffed with rich fillings, such as red bean paste, lotus paste, or kennel mixtures. It’s usually in round shape and sometimes has a salted egg yolk in the middle of the filling to represent the moon.  A nice pattern with Chinese characters is pressed on the skin, bringing best wishes.  The Suzhou style is a baked puff pastry stuffed with minced pork or red bean paste. It’s much smaller in size and has a red stamp on the crust indicating the flavor.  The Snow Skin moon cake, a contemporary style, is a non-baked chilled cake with glutinous rice crust stuffed with diversified fillings made of pretty much anything that can be made into a paste, from traditional red bean to taro paste and pineapple, or even cream cheese and ice-cream.

So I tell Chris I’m gonna make moon cakes by myself for this year’s festival. I’ve searched online to see where I can get the mold. It’s not a very popular tool since it’s only used for special occasion and usually people won’t make moon cake at home as the process is a bit time consuming. Plus there are all kinds of moon cakes available in the store. Why bother? Well, I love making food by myself and it is always much healthier if you know what ingredients you put in your food. So here we are, 10:30 on Sunday morning, at the Chinese shopping mall hunting for a moon cake mold. There’s only one kitchen ware store that sells the mold and we waited for a while until it opened, only to find out that there’s one last mold left. Hallelujah!!!

As soon as we got home, I couldn’t wait to start making them.  Four flavors and 14 moon cakes in total, it took me almost the entire afternoon and the evening. Oh well, that’s how efficiently things can be done with a rolling around mommy-mommy-hug-me baby. I bought ready to eat red bean, green bean and chest nut paste from store as I know I won’t have enough time to make them from scratch. The mocha chocolate cream cheese flavor was a hit! Chris loves cheese cake and that inspired me of making this filling. How can it go wrong with cream cheese, coffee and chocolate? The process was a bit messy as the cream cheese filling started to melt as soon as it got the temperature of your hands, but it turned out to be our favorite among all. Chris brought some to work to share with colleagues and I saved us one more cream cheese flavored as it is just so delicious!

To all, happy Mid-Autumn Festival and enjoy the beautiful bright moon!

SNOW SKIN (ORIGINAL FLAVOR)        

Make 4 moon cakes (125g each)

Ratio of skin and filling is 3:2

- 50 g glutinous rice flour

- 50 g rice flour

- 30 g wheat flour

- 40 g icing sugar

- 185 g milk

- 20 g vegetable oil

- 50 g cooked glutinous rice flour (for handling)

STEPS:

- In a large pot, bring water to a boil for steaming.

- Mix all the dry ingredients together.

- Mix in milk slowly and keep whisking to get rid of any lumps.

- Add in vegetable oil and mix until well combined.

- Pour the flour mixture to a bowl through a sifter to make sure the moon cake skin is smooth.

- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap. In this way, the steam will not get into the mixture.

- Turn the heat to medium and steam for 25 minutes or until the flour mixture is set.

- Let it cool to the temperature that is okay to handle by hand, knead the flour mixture to form a smooth dough.

- Add food coloring during the kneading process if needed.

- Wrap the dough with plastic wrap.

- Weigh 75g of the dough and roll it into a ball. Flatten it to make a round disc, about 1/8 inch thick.

- Weigh 50g of the filling and roll into a ball. Wrap the filling with the dough. Pinch the top to seal.

- Put a little bit of the cooked glutinous flour all around the ball. Put the sealed side down on a non-sticky surface. Use the moon cake mold to press the shape. Gently shake the mold to get the moon cake out.

- Keep the moon cake in the fridge until ready to serve.

MOCHA CHOCOLATE CREAM CHEESE FILLING

- 250 g Philadelphia cream cheese, room temperature

- 4 heap tbsp icing sugar

- 1 tsp coffee beans, finely grind

- 10 ml hot water

- 4 squares (113g) Baker's semi sweetened chocolate

- 20 g unsalted butter

- 30 ml milk

STEPS:

- Dissolve the coffee powder in the water. Let it cool.

- Mix cream cheese, icing sugar, coffee until smooth.

- Mix chocolate, butter and milk in a bowl. Put the bowl on a pot with simmering water and stir until chocolate is melted and smooth.

- Add chocolate into the cream cheese mixture and whisk until well mixed.

- Keep the cream cheese filling in the fridge until it firms up.

- Scoop about 50g of the filling and quickly shape it into a ball. Do not over work on it as it will melt in your hands!

- Put the cream cheese balls in the freezer so that it is easier to handle during the wrapping process.