Lovin' My Food

My kids absolutely love this and so do I! We always save a tiny portion to eat with noodles the next day. I use a half pork belly with half pork shoulder. The belly adds fat and gelatin and the shoulder is tender and meaty and balance out those extra fat - and for the little one that doesn't like the fatty part. Cut the meat into thick chunks and marinade with thick soy sauce and sugar and five spice and sesame oil - I normally do that in the morning to cook at noon so an hour or two minimum. Heat the oil and throw in big slices garlic and add the meat before the garlic burns. Add one cinamon stick and one star anise. Stir and at this point, if you are not using a big wok, the whole thing is full of water and not really frying. So at this point I'd add the sugar, close the pressure cooker lid and let it burn for a few minutes. Open the lid and add some oyster sauce and more dark soy sauce. Add water and two eggs (I feel it's a waste to boil separately). Cover and ...

Soak Porcini mushroom with hot water and some milk. Drain and cut. Heat up stock in a separate jug or pot. (heat up the milk and mushroom liquid as well) Soften onions in olive oil or butter or both. Add risotto rice (usually Arborio or Canarolli. Roughly 100g per person). After a few minutes add porcini and continue frying. Adding wine is optional. Add stock bit by bit while stirring. Keep stirring and adding stock and milk. After about 20 minutes, add in peas and stir for another few minutes. Remove from heat, add a knob of butter and cover for a few minutes. Fry other mushrooms (I like chestnut mushrooms) in separate frying pan with butter and add some extra onions for bite. Ham/bacon is also optional. Mixed into the risotto with some fresh parsley and sprinkle grated parmesan before serving. [Overnight] Fry more mushroom and onions and peas in frying pan with butter and fry chilled leftover risotto and serve.

I suppose this works with chicken as well but I had one pork shoulder on the day to consume and pork is a more fatty succulent meat anyway. On top of that I tenderize it three ways as you shall see. Start by filleting the pork shoulder steak (from 1cm thick) into two 0.5cm thin slices. Beat with meat tenderizer/mallet. In a bowl mix these ingredients and spread over the meat: Paprika Some dry herbs (I used Provencal) olive oil crushed garlic crushed onion  (juice) brown sugar Lastly a squirt of mayonnaise Magical Mayo There is something really magical about mayo because it is an emulsion: small droplets of oil surrounded by egg yolk, that helps the oil to stick really well to the meat and release it from the hot grill surface. And where oil only heats and browns the food thermally, mayonnaise is able to brown food chemically — that golden-brown color — through what is known as the Maillard reaction. The Maillard reaction requires sugars and proteins to work; a...