It’s time for floury white baps on #shortandtweet, and – with aromas of star anise, liquorice, and chilli ringing in my nostrils from a flurry of Chinese cooking in the house over the past week – I could think few better ways to enjoy them than with some slow braised pig cheeks.
All week, I have wanted to head into Chinatown for some wonderful baked goods. Perhaps it’s the weather, perhaps it’s the talk of everyone dieting, but I’ve been dreaming of bakery-fresh char-sui buns. These are not they, but a truly excellent alternative. The way of cooking the pig cheeks was inspired by Fuschia Dunlop’s recipe for steamed pork in her “Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook”. Fuschia is my go to person on all matters Sichuan, and many others. Her books are beautifully written, full of history, culture, and – most of all – descriptions of a life-enhancing passion for food.
You’ll notice that I’m pretty relaxed about cooking timings and proportions. If you don’t have much time to cook the pork, just cook it for less time, taking the cheeks out when first tender. If you don’t have all the spices, add what you do have. The cheeks may still be pretty tasty with Tate & Lyle, some sherry, a little soy sauce, chilli, and a few sticks of cinnamon. Different, but definitely still tasty! Free range pig cheeks are an absolute steal from my local Waitrose at the moment.
Recipe: Hunanese-style braised pig cheeks
Serves 2-3 in a bun
500g pork cheeks, or 6-8 cheeks (trim off any slivers of bone, but otherwise leave intact)
1.5″ ginger, unpeeled, cut into pieces
1 scotch bonnet chilli, diced (include the seeds)
1tbsp assorted spice (including fennel, liquorice root, cassia bark, star anise, cao guo, cloves)
1tbsp light soy sauce (for saltiness)
0.5tbsp dark soy sauce (for colour and sweetness)
4tbsp shaoxing wine
50g rock sugar, crushed in a pestle & mortar
1. Place all ingredients into a zip lock bag and leave to marinate in the fridge for anything from none to many hours. Tell them who’s boss; just take them out when you’re ready.
2. Heat oven to 120° C. Tip cheeks and marinade into an oven proof dish with a lid (e.g. le creuset), and top up with enough water to cover. Put the lid on, and cook in the oven until the cheeks break apart – they should be good after 1.5 hours, but even better after 4 hours.
3. When you are nearly ready to eat, remove the pork cheeks from the oven dish with a slotted spoon, and strain the sauce through a sieve into another pan. Reduce the strained sauce on the hob, by about 3/4 until it’s still runny but looks thicker. It won’t look sticky, but on tasting, the unctuous gelatin will coat the inside of your mouth.
4. Place the pork cheeks back in the pan with the sauce, and stir to break them up a little, and warm them through
5. Serve in one of the baps below, with rinsed and boiled sour mustard greens, or another mild green pickle
Soft white baps
Dan Lepard’s recipe is published in the guardian here. I made a few changes to the recipe to suit my store cupboard and mood, which still resulted in a soft floury bap.
– Used 24g of fresh yeast (going by traditional bakers’ percentage – 3% fresh yeast to 100% flour by weight);
– Half the flour used was ’00’, as I’d run out of strong white (on the shopping list for the morning);
– Used skimmed milk. Thought about topping up the fat with extra butter, or use more milk and less water, but in the end I just left it;
– And finally, I was feeling somewhat baked-out from cooking other things all day, so – very rarely for me – I couldn’t face touching the very wet and sticky dough, and threw the lot in a kitchenaid to knead for 7 minutes, instead of kneading it by hand as instructed. I wish I’d added a little extra flour before the kneading (around 3tbsp). Do not do as I did, and add additional flour it after: you will be squishing out lumps as you do the final shaping!
And… I can’t resist a final close up!
Now, that looks like a remarkably good use of those delightful baps & I have a feeling that something similar might be rostered onto the menu in a kitchen that is very close to me in the very near future.
Agreed on the stickiness of the dough yet the oven spring seems to have caught most of us by surprise.
How was the squidginess and crumb?
I seem to have almost no oven spring — can’t see much change in shape or size during the baking — see last three photos. Stickiness was a pain to work with, but then I often bake with very wet dough.
We couldn’t wait for them to cool before eating, as you’ll see in the last photo! Straight from the oven they were a little firm on the top, and with delicious hot and squishy dough in the centre. After cooling the tops softened and the crumb was exactly as one would expect from a floury bap – no obvious air gaps, but very light (and squidgy!). Don’t know if there are better technical terms! Will photograph the inside of one a little later and send across.
The cheeks are great – and incredibly cheap. Plus, I’d guess reasonably low in fat for pork…
Ah, on second look, there does seem to be some spring. Is this a lot? Generally a poor judge of these things…
That’s what I call a proper sandwich! Beautiful. The photos, too.
They look delicious – I have never seen pork cheeks here, will demand them of the local butcher who wants me to make bread for him as I think I want to make this – badly. Maybe I could run him up a batch of baps? I think the variation in flour accounts for the stickiness to a great extent. I always hold back a bit of water these days, though harder to do that with a sponge of course. 1 am food bliss
Ah, good point on flour. Waitrose only seemed to start stocking the cheeks a week or two ago. You’d think a friendly butcher should have plenty – recently chatting to a pig farmer who was saying he couldn’t even give the heads away. And even if not, am sure he’d get them in just for your bread!
This looks awesome – I’ll be adding this to my to-do list!
Oh, this all looks delicious and definitely something I’ll be adding to my menu! I’ve noticed pork cheeks at Tesco too, so I think they’re slowly becoming more popular.
Ive never thought of cooking schezuan like this !
ratedkb.blogspot.com
Wow. I need to make this RIGHT NOW. I made just a regular ol’ pulled pork last night, and now I’m wishing I had used your marinade instead. Sounds so delicious.
Your pictures are so gorgeous!
I’m just starting the food blogging thing, and would be honored if you had time to send some photo pointers my way!
http://www.the5to9cook.com
Marinade is great – do try it. Will take look at your pics – I suspect much of it might be that you’re using a flash? Really hard to get a picture looking good with one. In artificial light, if you have an SLR, turn the ISO right up until you don’t need the flash. There are also a few good books – maybe try http://www.amazon.com/Food-Photography-Snapshots-Great-Shots/dp/0321784111/ref=pd_sim_b_1 (much better than any advice I’d give!). Good luck!
Tried to comment on your blog – but openid never works for me… Don’t worry, I just had my first ever foodgawker upload rejected too
Good luck!
Those are looking so good and I am really liking the flavours in them!
Just discovered your blog and having a little sticky beak around. Funnily enough was discussing pig cheeks the other day, now I have a recipe to try! It looks extreamly scrumptious. Thanks for sharing
Wonderful addition to a party we had yesterday – DELICIOUS!!!
http://littlemacaroon.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/47th-party-menu-happy-birthday-singapore.html
These look fabulous – I have the pigs cheeks all ready to braise!