Elaine’s well tested recipe to cook red braised pork chops—红烧大排.

Two years ago, I was served with a large bowl of noodles with a red braised pork chop as a breakfast in the city of Shanghai and I was shocked by how tender the meat is.  At that time, I was quite disappointed at the last meal in the previous day with Sichuan dishes as a topic. Most of the Sichuan dishes in Shanghai is over sweet for me but the local dishes are just extremely well balanced for my stomach.

I have been quite busy those days in my current city so failed to arrange a trip to Shanghai recently. So my solution is to test the food in my kitchen. I have failed at least 2 time before I call my red braised pork chops a perfect one– with a thin protection layer and the tenderest meat inside.

Ingredients

• 4 slices pork chops (around 1 cm in thickness)
• 4 tbsp. starch (cornstarch or sweet potato starch)
• 1 1/2 tbsp. water
• 2 green onions, cut into 1-inch section
• 1 green onion, finely chopped
• 1 small thumb ginger, sliced
• 2 tbsp. light soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp. sugar
• Oil for frying

Marinating sauce

• 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
• 1/2 tablespoon rice wine
• 1/8 teaspoon white pepper
• a small pinch of salt

Steps

1. Pound the pork chops back and forth with a pounder or the back of a knife (Chinese way) then marinate with rice wine, white pepper, salt and light soy sauce for 10 to 15 minutes.

2.Mix 4 tbsp. of starch with 1 and 1/2 tbsp. water in a small bowl. Then mix with marinated pork chops. Message to make sure the pork chops are well coated.

3.Heat oil (the oil depth should be at least 4cm) to 160 degree C (almost smoky) and then fry the pork chop one by one until well browned. I highly recommend using deep-frying instead of pan-frying at this step because the former one can greatly shorten the cooking time and keep the tenderness of the meat. 

Heat around 1 tbsp. of oil in a pan and fry ginger and green onion over slow fire until aroma.

Then place fried pork chops in, add a small pinch of salt, sugar and light soy sauce. Simmer for 1 to 2 minutes. Pick the pork chops out, discard the ginger and green onion, and keep the sauce to pour over.

You can serve this with steamed rice or a simple soy sauce noodle.