A Dish from the Chinese Minority Yao

I saw a report about a minority in China a while ago. The people of the Yao live in the South and Southwest of China, partly in Vietnam too.
A woman was cooking a tasty looking dish, I took paper and pen and made notes. Basically I think my recipe now is an homage to their culture. If it has any similarity, I can´t say. But I like to cook it and it reminds me of that report. It is great to freeze and to have some meals later in the weeks.

A Yao Dish

recipe:
750 g pork belly
1 bunch of spring onions in 3 cm sticks
3 parsley roots or carrots or else in 2 cm sticks
5 spice powder
3 cm fresh ginger in batons
orange pepper
1 whole garlic bulb chopped
1 handful of green chillis chopped
50 g dried plums halved
40 g dried and soaked mushrooms with the water
1 cup sake
1/2 cup soy sauce
2 tbsp dark brown sugar
1/2 cup of water
1 1/2 cups of broth
2 tbsp oil

                                                           Pork Belly

A day ahead:
The pork belly needs to loose it´s skin on top and the bones on the other end. Don´t throw that away, place it into 750 ml water, 2 bay leaves, 10 peppercorns, 1 clove of garlic and a bit of veggie and cook it for 1 hour, get everything through a sieve and save the broth.

start a Broth

Grind the spices for the 5 spice powder or take a shop bought one. Use some lemon or orange pepper too.
In a big freezer bag, add 1 tbsp of sesame oil, the cubed pork belly and the spices and leave that to marinate for 24 hrs.



Start the meat:
In a big pot in oil on high heat fry off the meat until it gets a good color, scoop it out in a bowl.
In the same pot put in the chopped veggies, except mushrooms and plums and let them get a bit soft, scoop out into the same bowl.

Use the water, broth and brown sugar to deglaze the pot, scrub off all the good stuff on the bottom.
Place meat and veggies in the pot, add sake, soy and mushroom water with the mushrooms, chuck in the plums and bring everything up to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 90 minutes. Give it a stir a couple of times. In the end there is barely any liquid left. It does not need salt and has a nice heat.

let it simmer for 90 minutes

Serve with sticky rice.