2022/02/15

Fried pork with onions
(Yeongchon Jin Juper)

[Hong Kong home cooking classic: Hong Kong pork steak with onions]

"There were a lot of 'Pig-stuffed' contestants in this year's Miss Hong Kong," I said to a friend about 10 years ago in a chat. "Miss Hong Kong" is a beauty contest held in Hong Kong.
At the time, I was really shocked by the word "Zhu Zhu" which means "pork steak" in Cantonese. It was the first time I had heard that expression, so I tried to find a commonality between beauty pageants and pork steak, but I couldn't think of anything and I was stumped.
Cantonese in Hong Kong is a colloquial language (a dialect, so to speak). New words, buzzwords, and internet slang appear in abundance every year in Hong Kong, so it is difficult for people living abroad, and even local Hong Kongers, to keep up with the rapid changes in the language. Furthermore, Hong Kong has its own unique "cho-hau" (a collection of vulgar words), and even locals cannot possibly understand all of them. If you cannot understand something, you will need someone to "interpret" for you.
"Zhu jiao" was a popular phrase at the time and meant "a fat and ugly woman." In short, my friend wanted to say that there were many "fat and ugly women" in the Miss Hong Kong that year. Is it normal to say such an insult with such impact? It is not easy to say a word like "Zhu jiao".
Returning to the food, pork chops are a very popular ingredient in Hong Kong. When I was growing up, I couldn't stop eating rice when pork chops appeared on the dinner table. The chewy meat was thrown into my mouth and mixed with the fragrant jasmine rice. Just thinking about it makes my mouth water. I'm a food thief.
It's a classic Hong Kong home-style dish, but the seasoning varies from household to household, just like Japanese curry. My grandmother used a simple soy sauce seasoning, but some households season it with ketchup or Worcestershire sauce.

Tip: Place the pork chops on a cutting board, cover them with plastic wrap and hit them with a rolling pin to break down the fibers and make the meat more tender.

Ingredients (serves 2)

Shoulder roast steak… 2 pieces (220g)

Onion…………………………………… 200g

Salt…………………………………………. 2g

Water………………………………………….. 30g

Tonteki seasoning

[A]

Soy sauce…………………………1 tsp

Salted rice malt…………………………1 teaspoon

Sugar…………………………1 tsp

Ginger juice…………………………..1 tsp

Sake………………………..1 tablespoon

Potato starch………………………..1 tsp

Flour…………………………..1 tsp

Pepper…a little

Salad oil……………………..1 tsp

Preparation

● Peel the onion, cut it in half, cut off a V shape at the base, and then slice it thinly along the grain.
● Cut the tonteki steak into several places along the tendons with a knife, cover it with plastic wrap and hit it with a rolling pin.
● Stir the seasoning [A] thoroughly.

Method

1 Add the pork steak to [A] and leave for 15 to 30 minutes.
2 Heat a frying pan over medium heat, add 1 tablespoon of salad oil (not included in the recipe), slowly fry the onion, sprinkle with salt, and remove from the frying pan when it becomes transparent.
3. In the same frying pan (without washing it), turn the heat to medium-high, add 2 teaspoons of salad oil (not included in the recipe), add the pork steak from step 1, and when one side is browned, flip it over and cook the other side, add the onion from step 2, add 30g of water and cover. When the water has evaporated, it's done.

Wanjae

Culinary researcher. Born in Hong Kong. During her childhood, she ate her grandmother's home cooking on weekdays and her father's home cooking on weekends, whose hobby was cooking. After moving to Australia, she moved to Japan after getting married and has been living there for over 20 years. She is certified as a Chinese international herbalist, fermented food sommelier, and fermentation life advisor, and has a deep knowledge of food culture in both the Chinese-speaking world and Japan. She is currently working in Tokyo to spread the word about Hong Kong cuisine to the people of Japan.

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