Steamed Five-Flower Pork

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Steamed Five-Flower Pork (Photo by panduh/flickr)

Serves 6.

Ingredients

1 kg/2 lb lean belly pork
4 tablespoons dark soy sauce
2 tablespoons Chinese wine or dry sherry
1/2 teaspoon five-spice powder (optional)
1 teaspoon crushed garlic
220 g/7 oz/1 cup uncooked rice

Directions

Ask butcher to remove pork skin. Cut pork into large squares and marinate in a mixture of soy sauce, wine, five-spice powder and garlic for at least an hour, preferably longer.

Roast uncooked rice in a heavy frying pan over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, for 15 minutes or until the grains are golden in colour. Put into the container of an electric blender and blend on high speed until ground to powder. If blender is not available, pound a little at a time using a mortar and pestle.

Roll pieces of pork, one at a time, in the rice powder and put them into a heatproof dish. Steam over rapidly boiling water for 2 hours or until the pork is so tender it can easily be broken with chopsticks. Replenish water as it boils away with more boiling water. Serve hot, accompanied by steamed white rice.

Recipe excerpted from Encyclopedia of Asian Food by Charmaine Solomon (Periplus Editions, 1998)