This is my first try and I am happy with it. My youngest girl, Joanna, asked me to buy chilled pork leg so she can eat when she comes back for the CNY. And I thought why not give it a try. So I searched for a recipe online and I bumped into this link:
TO INDULGE ONESELF (Thanks to Alfred & Janet for sharing)
I swapped the steps given in the recipe. Instead of soaking the pork leg in the wine first, I cooked the pork leg in boiling water with few star anise and cloves plus some salt. It took about 30min to cook and then I took it out and let it cool before putting it in a container with Shaoxing wine (about 1 1/2 half lit.) to soak. After 3 days, I took it out and removed the bandage, cut into 3 portions, wrapped in aluminum foil and kept in the freezer for the Chinese New Year.
This has a strong wine taste (children may not like this) and I am going to try another one without the wine, which is more to the original taste.
25 Jan 2011
CHILLED PORK LEG
This is another pork leg I tried out without soaking in the wine. You will notice it is a whole front leg. The center bone is removed but the hoof remains and the skin is still intact which makes it easy work.
I seasoned the pork leg inside out with
Szechuan peppercorn salt and left it in the fridge overnight. The next day, I cut off some of the access meat and pushed it right inside, filling the space at the hoof end. Then sealed the opening by sewing (with double strength cotton thread) the skin together while pushing all the meat inside to make it tight. Then bandaged it tightly to prevent the skin from bursting open during the cooking. I used a cotton gauze bandage. It is not only cheap but safer to use as it is not elastic and fully cotton. I just soak the whole roll in water and squeeze out the water before using it (sort of wash it) but do not unroll it as it will be impossible to use once unrolled. I learned from my mistake.
I boiled it for 30 min (will take longer for bigger ones) in a pot with water to cover the whole leg. I added a few star anise and cloves to the water and also some salt.
After cooling, chill it before cutting. I splitted it into 3 portions and freezed them for CNY. For the hoof, you can just eat it or make soup with it by using the broth from the pork leg.
Besides eating chilled pork leg with pickled ginger, it goes well with chilli salt, garlic and lime juice.
CHILLI SALT
I like trying different chilli paste and this time I did a chilli salt. Just as it is called, I chopped up a small bowl of small chillies (seeds removed to lessen the hotness but it is still hot as I was sneezing and coughing as I was preparing it) and dry fried it with sea salt (1part chilli to 1part salt). Cool it before storing in a jar.
Add minced garlic and lime juice to the chilli salt and it goes well with meat especially pork.
