Tag: twice cooked pork

I had a special kind of Monday evening tonight. For many years a group of us women friends, mostly busy mothers, met in Marlay Park, Rathfarnham on a Sunday morning for a run and an aerobic workout on the steps of the old house.  And every Monday night we would go to an aerobic class in nearby  Lamb Doyles with Gladys our wonderful teacher. Well 10 years or more have passed, kids grew up, a lot of us drifted apart. I haven’t seen most of those women in years.
Until tonight that is when Gladys got us all together for one night only as a charity fund-raiser for Crumlin Children’s Hospital – her daughter is running the New York Marathon for them. Even the pressure to get home from town in rush hour traffic and make a quick change into workout gear brought back old familiar feelings, When we walked into that room, shrieking with delight at recognising old faces that hadn’t changed nearly as much as we feared, all we were short of was the leg warmers.
The music came on – “I will survive” inevitably – and with a tear in my eye, muscle memory kicked into action and we were off. Apart from a few moans and groans, and nobody pregnant, it was as if we had never skipped a beat. Gladys didn’t spare us, well she cut back on the leaping about a bit, so we will have some aches and pains tomorrow. It was a bit of magic, a chance to catch up with old friends who are wearing rather well and to marvel at the daughters who turned up, the same age as the ones we used to fret about on our Sunday morning walks, now grown up into gorgeous young adults.
Having undertaken to cook dinner for “the lodger” aka my lovely niece Jodie, I didn’t hang about for coffee afterwards but it was still 9.30 by the time I got home and I was on a high and ravenous. The meal that follows was on the table by 10. Maybe it was the mood but this was one of the tastiest Chinese meals we have had yet. Inspired by the taste, I went onto the internet and my rambling bought me to Bay vs Kitchen, where I found many a great recipe.
I was prompted to try Ching-He Huang’s version of Twice Cooked Pork after seeing her prepare it on Saturday Kitchen Live on BBC1 last Saturday morning and it is included in Exploring China – a Culinary Adventure. It uses pork belly – wu hua rou – 5 layers of heaven – skin, fat, meat, fat, meat. Chin-He was great fun on the programme by the way and you can follow her on twitter @chinghehuang. I rang ahead on the way to Duncannon last Saturday evening and got the last piece of pork belly in Wallace’s SuperValu Wellington Bridge just as they were closing at 7 pm. It’s best to boil the pork the day before you use it – see below.