Connie’s notes
It was on Stephan Yan’s old show called Wok With Yan where I learned to pound and thinly slice meat so that there are more pieces to go around on the dining table. The technique is good for just about any meat for stir frying. It works with seafood too.
Aside from frugality considerations, thinly slicing pounded meat has a second advantage. The meat, cut across the grain, cooks faster. It’s true for beef; it’s true for pork.
But if pounding and thinly slicing meat is not your thing, there is an easier way to get the same result. I often buy pre-cut meat for my stir fries. For beef, I get sukiyaki cut or yakiniku cut. For pork, bacon-cut pork belly is always my first choice. Machine-sliced pork belly cut like bacon rashers. In Korean meatshops, the cut is called pork steak bulgogi or pork samgyeopsal. That’s the cut I used for this dish, and that’s why the cooking time is so short.
Ingredients
- 4 cloves garlic
- 1 onion (white or yellow)
- 1½ cups broccoli florets
- 2 pinches salt
- 1 teaspoon sesame seed oil divided
- 200 grams thinly sliced pork belly (bacon-cut pork, pork steak bulgogi or pork samgyeopsal in Asian meatshops)
- 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
- 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
- 1 tablespoon Shao Xing rice wine (or substitute sake or mirin)
- 2 bird’s eye chilies (optional)
Instructions
- Peel the garlic and chop.
- Peel the onion and cut into chunks.
- Boil about four cups of water in a pan, add the salt and half a teaspoon of sesame oil. Drop in the broccoli florets. When the water comes to a boil once more, count one minute then scoop out the broccoli. Drain the broccoli florets and dump into a bowl of iced water. When cool, drain once more and set aside.
- Cut the pork slices into two-inch wide pieces and spread on a cold frying pan.
- With the heat set on MEDIUM, leave the pork to cook and render fat until the undersides are lightly browned. Turn up the heat to HIGH, stir to separate any pieces that stick together and cook, tossing and stirring, for a minute.
- Stir together the soy sauce, oyster sauce, hoisin sauce, Shao Xing rice wine and remaining sesame seed oil. Pour over the pork. Stir to coat every piece of meat with sauce.
- Pour in a quarter cup of water and stir in the garlic.
- With the heat set to LOW, cover the pan and let the pork cook until almost all of the liquid has dried up (it takes less than five minutes).
- If adding chilies, slit them open, scrape off the seeds and discard. Thinly slice the chilies.
- Turn up the heat to HIGH. Add the onion and cook, tossing, until the onion pieces start to turn translucent.
- Add the broccoli florets and stir fry for another minute until everything is hot.
- Transfer the dish to a serving plate and, optionally, top with sliced chilies.
Beef, mushrooms and pepper stir fry
