I’ve finally got around to do some order in my Good Food mags. I’ve had a massive pile of them, having been subscribed to the magazine for 6 years, I now look through them all, pick what’s good and file it and the rest goes to the recycling bin.  Mainly recipes with kale, quinoa and all the super healthy crap. Not only there is space to be gained, but also lots and lots of good recipes get found. How I missed this one from Jeremy Pang from February last year- I don’t know, having been  a pig for Chinese food. Once found I decided to make it, hoping for similar goodness like a good dim sum.

It is one hell of a weekend project this dish.  First, the pork belly gets marinated and sits in the fridge overnight, then spends half a day in the oven- like I said, a project. That marinade though is a gem, I loved what it did to the pork. I used 4 mashed garlic cloves, thumb sized piece of ginger, finely chopped, 4 tbsps of tomato ketchup, 4 tbsps of hoi sin sauce, 4 tbsps of of caster sugar, 2 tbsps of soy sauce, 2 tbsps of rice vinegar, 2 tbsps of sunflower oil.  Rubbed it in and left to absorb the goodness and then roasted in 140 degrees for almost 3 hours, then increased the temperature to 170 and left for another 30 mins to caramelise the pork. It was falling apart, tender, delicious, dripping with yumminess.

It was accompanied by pickled carrots, a bit uninspired for my taste, so I’ll spare the description and the buns. The buns I don’t count as my life achievement. They were ok, filling, but I hurried them a bit, as got to making them late around 5pm and wanted them for dinner, not for breakfast next day.  250 g of plain flour, half a tbsp of caster sugar, half a tsp of dried yeast- next time fresh!-, 25 ml of milk, 100 ml of water, 1 tsp of rice vinegar and same amount of baking powder.  Kitchen Aid did the hard work, then the dough was supposed to prove for 2 hours, mine only had half that time.  Then knocked  down, shaped into a sausage, cut into 8 balls, shaped into ovals, flattened and brushed with oil.  Then folded in half and left to prove again for 1,5 hour, if one was to follow the recipe. But one was hungry and impatient, so after half that time in they went into a steamer for 8 minutes.

Like I said, the pork was sensational. The buns I’ll do again, but will start earlier and use fresh yeast. Plus will serve with sharper pickle and maybe fresh cucumber. Florek loved it. 🙂