On 8 Dec 2018, wrote
(in >):

> On Friday, December 7, 2018 at 5:39:47 PM UTC-6, dsi1 wrote:
> >
> > OTOH, you need 5 spice for roast pork.
> >
> > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fr6xswgiIyA
> Oh yum, a big old piece of fat meat. No thanks! My mother used to cook
> some of the most gawd awful pieces of fat meat and she's rather had that
> than lean meat. I guess that comes from being a farm girl and there was
> fat meat on the table everyday. It would just turn us kids stomachs to
> see that on the table.
>
> This brought back some unpleasant memories.

Thats a shame because the flavour of the meat is in the fat, which is why
most lean meat is almost tasteless - unless the retailers have added chemical
flavourings.

Cooked properly (i.e. slowly), pork fat will render down to a gorgeously soft
product which just melts in the mouth.

- - -

I mix a small amount of 5-spice powder with about a teaspoon each of light
soy sauce, dark soy sauce, oyster sauce and cornflour, plus a few drops of
sesame oil, rice wine, and fish sauce.

I leave that to rest for a couple of hours and then add it right at the end
of cooking my chicken chow mein; which is simply chicken pieces, mushrooms,
bean sprouts, and medium egg noodles fried in a very hot wok with a little
ground nut oil.

The cornflour in the sauce mix will slightly thicken it on heating, which
helps to coat the noodles and bean sprouts rather than just having a watery
mix at the bottom of the wok.

For me, the taste is as close as I can get to a UK Chinese take-away chow
mein - which is the object of the exercise IMO as if I can make it myself I
am well happy.