Pork and Cabbage in Black Bean Sauce

Pork and Cabbage in Black Bean Sauce

Several weeks ago we invited one of our close friend and his family at home to have dinner. That dinner was one day after our bad charter fishing, it was not a good fishing day, it was rainy and the ocean is uncooperative leaving almost everyone with no catch and sick. Luckily I was one of the ones with the catch but I only got one snapper, it was of a good size roughly around 2 kilos so it’s good enough to share and enjoy our prize. With the snapper I made this dish called Moqueca de Piexe but that’s feels like it’s not enough so I have to make another dish to accompany it, looking at the fridge it was nearly empty as I thought I will be catching more than one fish like any other years where I maxed out the limit of snappers so no weekend grocery happened. What I only have that time was cabbage and pork belly which I guess you know is nearly a staple at home, it looks like I can’t make anything delicious out of it so I looked further and see what can give it flavour and excitement, then I found some dried chillies and fermented black beans, now that can make a gorgeous stir fry. That stir fry is this post, another impromptu creation, a very flavourful dish that I am proud to share to you guys.

Ingredients

500g pork belly, whole block
1/2 head cabbage, sliced
3 stalks spring onions, chopped
1/2 thumb sized ginger, finely sliced
8 pcs dried chillies
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tbsp cornstarch, diluted in 1/4 cup water
2 tbsp fermented black beans, pounded and roughly chopped
2 cups water
salt
oil

Method

1. In a small pot add pork and water, bring it to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes.
2. Remove pork from pot, let it cool then slice thinly. Set it aside.
3. In a wok add oil then stir fry pork together with garlic, chillies and ginger in high heat, cook for 3 minutes.
4. Add fermented black beans and cabbage, stir fry for 2 minutes.
5. Add soy sauce, dark soy sauce, 1/2 cup of water from boiled pork and cornstarch mixture. Bring it to a boil, season with salt, turn off heat then serve.