Salt-Fried Pork with Garlic Stems

Another delicious quick stir-fry dish from Every Grain Of Rice cookbook by Fuchsia Dunlop. I love garlic stems, they are sweet, crunchy and delicious. In this recipe, very thinly sliced pork belly are fried in a little oil until they are curved and browned in places. They are then removed and keep aside.

To prepare the garlic stems, chilli bean paste and fermented black beans are stir-fried until the oil is red and fragrant, then the fried pork slices are added in, season with some sugar to taste. Add the garlic stems and continue to stir fry until the garlic stems are cooked through.

This is a delicious stir-fry. With minimal ingredients, but very tasty. Delicious with fluffy rice. We love it.

Salt-Fried Pork with Garlic Stems
(Every Grain Of Rice, Fuchsia Dunlop)
100gm streaky belly pork, without skin
150gm garlic stems
3 tbsp cooking oil or lard
pinch of salt
1 tbsp Sichuan chilli bean paste
1 tbsp fermented black beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 tsp sugar

Cut the pork into thin slices, each with a good mixture of fat and lean. Cut the garlic stems into 4cm sections, discarding any fibrous parts at their bases.

Add the oil or lard to a seasoned wok over a high flame, then add the pork, reduce the heat to medium and stir-fry until the slices are curved and tinged with gold and the oil is clear, adding a good pinch of salt about halfway through the cooking time.

Use a wok scoop or ladle to move the pork to one side of the wok. Tip the chilli bean paste and black beans into the oil that pools in the space you have created and stir-fry them briefly until the oil is red and fragrant. Then mix everything together, add the sugar and then the garlic stems.

Increase the heat to high and stir-fry until the garlic stems are cooked (taste one to check when they are ready, their aggressive raw pungency will have mellowed to a sweet garlickiness). Serve.