Bitter Melon Roasted Pork

Overview

I remember that I didn’t eat bitter melon when I was a child. One time my father served me a bowl of braised pork and asked me to try it. The bitter gourd there absorbs the aroma of the meat, and the aroma is slightly bitter with a sweet aftertaste. I've embraced it ever since. After I got married, I cooked this dish for my family, and they all loved it. Every year when bitter melon is on the market, my husband will clamor to eat bitter melon and roast pork. Now is the season when bitter melon is on the market in large quantities, so make a bitter melon roast pork to comfort your family.

Tags

• hot dishes
• bitter melon
• cinnamon
• dried chili pepper
• onions
• pork belly
• star anise
• fragrant leaves
• ginger
• peppercorns

Ingredients

Steps

1. 1 Boil the pork belly in cold water and remove. Use an awl or a thick needle to prick the skin of the meat while it's hot. Prick deeper and more often to force out the oil. Then cut into small pieces.

   

2. 2 slices of ginger, cut a green onion into sections, cut dried chilies into sections and remove the seeds, and prepare aniseed, pepper, cinnamon, and bay leaves.

   

3. 3 Put an appropriate amount of oil in the pot, add rock sugar and boil until the sugar melts and turns slightly brown, add the pork belly and stir-fry over medium heat. There is no need to wait for the sugar to become darker and bubbly, because the oil in the meat needs to be stir-fried, and the sugar will become darker during the frying process. The difference between using rock sugar and white sugar is that rock sugar makes the finished product brighter.

   

4. 4 Stir-fry the meat pieces, add ginger slices, peppercorns, aniseed and dried chili segments. Stir-fry until the meat is oily and colored, add cooking wine and dark soy sauce and stir-fry evenly.

   

5. 5 Add water to cover the meat pieces, put the green onions, cinnamon bark and bay leaves into the pot, cover and bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce to low heat and simmer for forty minutes.

   

6. 6 Wash the bitter melon, remove the pulp from both ends, and cut into pieces.

   

7. 7 After the meat is cooked until tender, add the bitter melon, add an appropriate amount of oyster sauce, then add water and simmer. I put too much water, it only needs to cover half of the dish.

   

8. 8 When the water is almost dry, add salt and light soy sauce and taste. If the bitterness is severe, add some sugar to taste. Heat the soup over high heat until the oil disappears and the soup becomes sizzling, as if the pot is drying up. Add chicken essence and stir-fry evenly.

   

9. 9 When it comes out of the pot, the meat is soft and fat but not greasy, and the bitter melon has a strong aroma, slightly bitter but sweet, very delicious.