Lacquered Pork (Momofuku Bo Ssam)

Lacquered Pork (Momofuku Bo Ssam)  

I think I have mentioned my love of easy to make dishes. I also have a love of pork (who doesn't), and I love Asian style foods.  This dish is the best of all three. It has minimum preparation and piggy goodness. Pop it in the oven and ignore it for hours. Then Serve. Its perfect for when you want to impress your guests with something that looks as if you slaved all day to make.

This is also a great recipe to make for a family dinner, shred and eat or freeze for grab and go meals. 

Ingredients

3-5 lb bone in pork shoulder
1/3 cups white sugar
1/3 cup salt
1/8 cup garlic powder
1/3 cup brown sugar

Procedures

Combine sugar, salt and garlic in a small bowl. Score the fat on the pork shoulder. Rub sugar mixture into the meat. Cover and refrigerate overnight. The next morning, drain liquid from the meat.  Heat oven to 300 degrees.  Cook, covered for 5 hours.  Remove meat from the oven, increase oven temperature to 425. Coat the meat with brown sugar and return it to the oven, cook uncovered for 15-20 minutes or until sugar caramelizes.  Serve with rice on lettuce leaves.

Note- I have made this multiple times. It always turns out fabulous. I have even played with the recipe slightly by cutting small slits in the meat and stuffing 5-10 1/2 cloves of garlic into the meat or a mix of garlic and fresh ginger sliced very thin. Every version turns out wonderful. 

This goes great with a little of the Yongnomjeong sauce recipe I posted a while back.I make an Asian coleslaw and serve it as a lettuce wrap or type of Asian style taco.

To make leftovers into steamed buns-

Shred and dice the one pound lacquered pork. In a separate bowl combine:

2 shallots (finely diced)

2 chopped spring onion
1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
2 tablespoons oyster sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
¼ cup chicken stock
1 teaspoon cornflour

2 tbs honey
½ tablespoon vegetable oil

1 tablespoon shaoxing cooking wine (mirin works in a pinch)

½ teaspoon five spice powder

1/4 teaspoon ginger, grated

1. Heat the vegetable oil in a wok or pan.
2. Add diced pork to the wok/pan and stir then add spring onions and shallot, cook for 1 minute.
3. Add hoisin, soy sauce, honey, wine, ginger, 5 spice powder, oyster sauce and sesame oil to the pork mixture, stir fry for one minute.
4. Mix corn flour and stock together and then add to the pork mixture.
5. Stir well and keep cooking until the mixture thickens, 1 or 2 minutes.
6. Remove mixture from wok/pan and place in a bowl to cool. Set aside until ready to use.
7. Thaw rice bun dough (i cheat and buy it), roll out into 3” rounds and place 2-3 tbs meat mixture onto each round. Pinch dough closed around meat and place in steam basket. Steam 10-15 minutes until done.