Red Cooked Pork with Taro and Sweet Potatoes
I have a strong fondness for stews and braises, so it isn't surprising that although I adore stir fries, some of my favorite Chinese dishes are the homey stews that are eaten in the winter.
Red-cooked dishes have dark soy sauce in them, along with spices, and the soy sauce gives the finished meats and vegetables a rich reddish brown color. Some versions of red-cooked dishes include chile bean paste or rock sugar as further flavor enhancers depending on what region the recipe originated in.
This version has cubes of pork, bamboo shoots, taro roots and sweet potato in it and the sauce is flavored with a typical Chinese ingredient: rock sugar, which is a mixture of water, refined and unrefined sugars and honey, boiled down and crystallized into hunks of yellow "rocks." Crushed up, it adds a delicate, floral sweetness to red cooked dishes, as well as a thick gloss to the finished sauce.
One can substitute white potatoes for the taro roots, and one can use a combination of raw sugar and honey for the rock sugar, if one needs to.
Pictures, descriptions of the ingredients and how to use them and where to get them, and the recipe of course are here.
Red-cooked dishes have dark soy sauce in them, along with spices, and the soy sauce gives the finished meats and vegetables a rich reddish brown color. Some versions of red-cooked dishes include chile bean paste or rock sugar as further flavor enhancers depending on what region the recipe originated in.
This version has cubes of pork, bamboo shoots, taro roots and sweet potato in it and the sauce is flavored with a typical Chinese ingredient: rock sugar, which is a mixture of water, refined and unrefined sugars and honey, boiled down and crystallized into hunks of yellow "rocks." Crushed up, it adds a delicate, floral sweetness to red cooked dishes, as well as a thick gloss to the finished sauce.
One can substitute white potatoes for the taro roots, and one can use a combination of raw sugar and honey for the rock sugar, if one needs to.
Pictures, descriptions of the ingredients and how to use them and where to get them, and the recipe of course are here.