“Believe me, it’s the best homemade braised pork meat I have ever tried!”
This recipe was originally featured in a popular magazine. When I was flipping through the magazine, the food picture of this recipe shown on the magazine attracted me for a second look. I decided to give it a try as most of the ingredients used in this recipe were what I already had at home, or easily get it from supermarkets/ grocery shops.
Seriously, it was very delicious! I was so proud of myself for giving it a try. This recipe does not yield traditional briny-tasted braised meat with five-spice flavour. It was a hot spicy pork dish with a hint of sweet plum taste.
This dish was cooked with pig knuckles. Why knuckles? Having pig’s knuckles (猪手) dish during Chinese Lunar New Year is a distinctive way to celebration this occassion as knuckles in Chinese is called 猪手, similar pronunciation to 就手, which means convenient, handy, easily obtainable.. So, there is always this Chinese phrase, 横财就手, symbolizes to good gambling fortune, after a knuckles feast during Chinese Lunar New Year. This recipe, is surely a good festive dish for Chinese!
Besides good symbolism, it is still a wise choice to prepare the dish with knuckles in normal days, to get to eat its tender meat with chewy skin and less fat. It was extensively tender and flavoursome after the long braise. Superb! For someone who does not eat pig skin, I think it’s worth to have a bite or two of these jelly-textured skins.
I cooked this dish in a large clay pot. Not sure why, but most of the old folks advised using clay pot for long braising meat dishes. I guess, it helps to retain moisture better, in a way?! Anyway, using a clay pot to cook this braised knuckles yielded a more traditional-looking Chinese dish, and it looked kinda alluring, to me (winking smile). It’s ok, if you do not have a large enough clay pot, use slow cooker, or even wok.
I have to remind you to deseed the dried chilies, if you can’t take spicy food. With 20 dried chilies in the braise, it yields super hot flavour. So, the less chilies you have deseeded, the more spicy taste it will be.
Ingredients A:
1 pig knuckles, chopped into bite sizes
1 tablespoon of dark/ thick soy sauce
3 tablespoons of light soy sauce
4 tablespoons of sugar
1 tablespoon of white vinegar
4 eggs, hard boiled
Ingredients B:
5 thin slices of ginger
20 dried chillies, deseed some to reduce spiciness to your desired taste
8 – 10 cloves of garlic, skinned or with skin intact
1 star anise
2 tablespoons of cooking oil
Ingredients C:
3 tablespoons of oyster sauce
1 teaspoon of sesame oil
2 tablespoons of plum paste/ sauce
2 tablespoons of fish sauce
1 tablespoon of dark soy sauce
3 cups of water (about 750ml)
Pinch of salt and pepper to taste
For sauce thickening purpose:
¼ cup of cornstarch slurry (made of 1 tablespoon of cornstarch with ¼ cup of water, amount adjustable)
Method:
1) Wash knuckles thoroughly, and marinate with seasonings A (dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, sugar and white vinegar) for 2 – 3 hours. You may keep it in refrigerator while marinating. In the meantime, you may boil eggs. Peel egg shells when cooled, and set aside.
2) When marinating is done, heat large clay pot with 2 tablespoons of oil over high fire, stir fry ingredients B (ginger, dried chillies, star anise and garlic) until fragrant. Then, add in marinated knuckles.
3) Stir-fry knuckles until almost dried up, add seasoning C (sesame oil, oyster sauce, plum sauce, fish sauce, dark soy sauce, salt, pepper and water) and combine well. Add in hard boiled eggs. Cover pot with lid, and bring it to a boil.
4) Reduce heat to low fire, and simmer for 2 hours, or until meat become tender.
5) When it is done, stir in cornstarch slurry to thicken the gravy. Serve hot with steamed rice.
I have to thank to whoever created this recipe. It made my dinner an excellent 1-dish-meal. My family enjoyed it so much, but was a little bit too spicy for their palate (as I did not deseed any of the chilies at all).
For goodness sake, please give it a try.
A portion of braised knuckles with one hard boil egg counts about 525kcal.
Tips: Deseed half the amount or all of the dried chillies, if less spicy preferred.
* Thicken the gravy with cornstarch slurry towards the end of cooking. Use less slurry if more gravy preferred.
* If 1 portion of knuckles is not enough to feed 4 diners, or for some who don’t take knuckles, add some shoulder butt meat (about 250 grams) into the dish. Need not to increase the amount of condiments/ seasonings, just remain as it is.
moon June 22, 2009
hi there! just wanna to say a BIG thank u for all ur recipes!! it marvelous and easy to prepare.. i am not a good cook, and the first time i prepared full course dinner for my hubby was all ur recipes! He was so impressed and OD (over dosed) that nite! :) U rock gal!
PatriCa BB June 22, 2009
Hi Moon,
I was so touched seeing your comments and knowing that you have successfully done up a nice home cooked dinner for your hubby.
What’s more a woman asking for?!
Keep trying, and I will keep myself going with nice recipes, too!
Cheers!!
Dressy Missus January 19, 2011
Hi Patricia, great blog u’ve there! I intend to try out this spicy pork knuckles recipe as well, but just a question – do you stir-fry the knuckles in the claypot or do u do that separately? Sorry for the silly question posed..am a rookie at cooking :)
PatriCa BB January 19, 2011
Hi Dressy M.,
Yes, I used the same large clay pot to stir-fry the ingredients as well as pork knuckles, followed by the other steps required. But if you like, you may do the stir fying in wok or pan before transfering them to a claypot. It’s versatile. :)
nh1870 August 22, 2011
Another gem found!
This blog is very ‘dangerous’. I spent the last 3 hours doing nothing but going through the recipes in this blog. I must say most of the recipes are quite authentic and easy to follow. Gone are the days where hawker keep the recipes a top secret.
I also like the way the method is presented. Simple and easy to follow.
I started to learn cooking when I left Singapore years ago. My teachers are the internet (sites like this one), cook books and some help over the phone from my mum. Initially, my cooking is no good and the punishment is to finish all the lousy food I cooked so that I will try to cook better next time.
My disadvantage is that I stay upcountry part of Thailand and so is unable to get many of the cooking ingredients.
A little comment, I felt the pictures taken can be of higher quality. Pics seems to be taken from a mobile phone. But overall, this site is very good.
Kelly July 11, 2014
Hi Pat,
If I don’t use clay pot, can I use slow cooker instead.
PatriCa BB July 12, 2014
Hi, shouldn’t be any issue.
Power testro August 31, 2017
You’re so interesting! I don’t believe I’ve
read through a single thing like this before. So good to find another
person with a few genuine thoughts on this subject matter.
Really.. thanks for starting this up. This web site is something that is needed on the internet, someone with some originality!
Bob L February 6, 2018
Thanks ! This recipe is seriously good. It’s got more flavors from the ones that I used to have. It’s worth the long hours. One more dish for the coming CNY . Thanks again.
Bob L
PatriCa BB 雪冰 February 7, 2018
Hi Bob. Thanks for liking my dish. Yes, I must say it’s really flavorful and tasty.
Bea October 3, 2019
What is plum sauce?
Bea October 3, 2019
Still the best?