Being amid cornfields is not very festive or Chinese New Year-like, but we make do. Today we had a meal of braised pork, soft-core eggs, tofu and salted vegetable with rice noodles. Almost feels like we've got our own personal Chinese grandma watching out for our tummies already. The braise gravy was prepared the night before so that the aromas of the galangal, ginger, star anise, cinnamon, sichuan peppercorns, soy sauce, etc can come together. This gravy is such a thing of beauty. Once created, it can be used again for duck, vegetables such as kailan, and it is heavenly over a hot bowl of porridge. The slight spoiler is that our pork belly today did not have any skin on it! We bought it from a Korean supermarket and perhaps pork bellies for their use mostly do not involve the skin. This is rather strange to me given that the pork skin such a crucial part of the pork belly experience! I kind of feel cheated that our pork skin has been stolen, the dish would have been much better with sheets of pork skin sitting there springy and chewy in our wonderful braise sauce. That being said, as happy endings go, I do hope that our pork skin is in a happy place re-birthed as crisp crackling or as a puffy deep fried snack which will make someone's day.
