CHINESE SPICED PORK WITH PANCAKES

Last Sunday Pascal & I planned our perfect day - relax in bed, a scotch egg, sausage roll & wine in the pub and then a slow cooked meal at home, followed by reading the papers and a movie (we watched Prisoners with Hugh Jackman - very good but an annoying ending). Anyway I therefore needed to find a slow cooking recipe that we hadn't cooked before and wasn't a "roast" as I have a phobia against those. 

Pascal always wants me to cook the roast rack of pork with thyme and shallots again so I wanted to find something similar but different if you understand what I mean. Thankfully Lorraine Kelly (my not so secret obsession) came to the rescue when she had this Chinese Spiced Pork recipe on her show. Pascal loves peking duck pancakes and I was sure that this would be even better and I was not wrong!

Ingredients for 3-4 people:

2kg pork shoulder on the bone (I actually bought off the bone as it is easier to cut)
2 huge tbsp of sea salt
1 tsp of ground white pepper
2 tbsp oil
200ml light soy sauce (I used dark as that is what we have in the house)
4 tbsp soft brown sugar
3 star anise
2 cinnamon stick
10 thin slices of ginger
5 garlic cloves, lightly bruised with the flat of a knife
2 spring onions, chopped

To Serve:

Chinese pancakes (I actually just used tortillas as they were easier to buy and worked just as well)
Hoisin sauce
Spring onions, shredded
Cucumber, cut into batons

Preheat the oven to 220 C. Score the pork rind every 1cm with a very sharp blade, taking care not to cut through to the meat. 

Place the pork into a deep roasting tray and rub half the salt, the pepper and the oil into the rind. Sprinkle with the remaining salt. Roast for 20 minutes or until the skin is cracked. I made the mistake of using a ceramic dish - huge error as I burnt the sh*t out of it! Definitely use a roasting tin.

Remove from the oven and add the soy sauce, 200ml water, sugar, star anise, cinnamon stick, ginger, garlic and spring onion to the tray.

Reduce the temperature to 180 C and cook for a further one hour forty minutes or until the pork is very tender. About 8 minutes before the pork is finished, cook the tortillas if you are using them, as they take about 6 minutes in the oven wrapped in a foil parcel (see packet for instructions).

Slice and serve with the pancakes, hoisin, cucumber and spring onion.

The recipe doesn't mention what you do with the sauce you cook the pork in - it is delicious and so you don't want to throw it away. I used it as an extra dipping sauce for the pancake rolls or just dipped the pork and crackling in it on it's own and it was delicious.

This was another hugely successful meal - using the tortillas kind of made it into a cross between a fajita, a peking duck roll and a roast. We both really enjoyed it and had plenty left over the next day which we ate in a salad. It is a fun alternative way to eat roast pork and I would definitely recommend it. Just make sure you have some napkins on hand as we found it got pretty messy although I am never shy with a sauce!!