Mongolian Pork

By taochavez

Ingredients

• For the sauce:
• 750 g. of skinless pork belly (pork neck will work too)I used Pork loin.
• 1/4 c. of light soy sauce
• 3 heaping tbsps. of hoisin sauce
• 1 tsp. of sesame seed oil
• 1/3 c. of tapioca or cornstarch
• 1 about 1 and 1/2 c. of vegetable cooking oil for frying
• 2 tbsps. of vegetable oil
• 1 heaping tbsp. of ginger, minced
• 1 heaping tbsp. of garlic, minced
• 1/2 c. of dark soy sauce
• 1/4 c. of rice wine
• 1 bird’s eye chili, finely sliced
• 1 c. of sugar

Details

Servings 4
Preparation time 15mins
Cooking time 30mins
Adapted from feastasia.com

Preparation

Step 1

Instructions

Slice the pork thinly (1/4 inch thin or thinner) across the grain.
Put the pork in a bowl and add the soy sauce, hoisin sauce and sesame seed oil.

Mix well.
Add the cornstarch.
Mix well. Cover and allow to marinate in the fridge for about 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, start making the sauce.

Over medium heat, heat up the 2 tbsps. of vegetable cooking oil in a pan. Add the ginger and garlic and cook, still over medium-low heat, until fragrant. Should take a couple of minutes. Don’t wait for the ginger and garlic to brown.
Pour in the rice wine and soy sauce. Add the chopped chili and sugar. Stir until the sugar is dissolved.

Turn up the heat to medium high and allow the sauce to boil gently until it acquires a syrupy consistency, about ten minutes. Taste the sauce. If you want it more salty or sweet, stir in some salt (more soy sauce will make the sauce too dark) or more sugar, as needed. Set aside.
Heat the 1 and 1/2 c. of cooking oil in a wok or frying pan. I don’t use a thermometer but the ideal temperature for frying is between 350F to 375F. You can test the temperature by dropping a piece of bread into the oil. If the bread sinks, the oil isn’t hot enough. If it browns in less than five seconds, it’s too hot.
Over medium high heat, fry the pork in batches. Do not overcrowd the pan. Cook ten to 12 pieces at a time to maintain the temperature of the oil. If the pork slices are thin enough, each batch should cook in four to five minutes.

Drain the fried pork on a stack of paper towels as each batch cooks.
When all the pork is done, gently reheat the sauce. This is a caramelized sauce and, as with anything caramelized, it would have thickened considerably as it cooled. You want to make it thin enough to coat the pork pieces with. So, reheat gently. Once it has thinned to a syrupy consistency again, add the pork to the sauce, stir and toss alternately until all the pork pieces are coated with the rich sticky sauce.

Sprinkle the pork with finely sliced scallions (green onions) and serve on top of steaming rice.