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Cheong Lieu's Spicy Pork Hock

by Alex Bratasiuk on 26 May 2009

 

Celebrating 12 years of gastronomic success, the relationship between The Grange Restaurant and chef Cheong Liew has seen food elevated to the highest level and Cheong to celebrity status worldwide.  The Father of fusion cuisine, mixing French technique and Asian flair, Cheong has defined his innovative style as “East meets West”.  American Food & Wine magazine named Cheong one of the “world’s ten hottest chefs alive”!

I remember my mum was skimming through her cooking bible, ‘the eight great cuisines of China’, while my dad was dreaming and telling us of his dream pork hock dish that he would love to eat ‘Braised pork hock with sea cucumber in fish sauce, a Fujian province dish, my mum suddenly read me a recipes of a game dish with a very rich game sauce that required nine sauces, caught my attention.

 

Momentarily I like the idea to put the sauce with a pork hock and I like the challenge of the cooking method, which is a very very old fashion of braising. I’ve even read of the same method of braising in old medieval English cooking. I decide to put these two ideas together. The idea of serving a whole pork hock as a main dish would make a new focal point in menu and to the public of Adelaide. By then Neddy’s Two (famous Adelaide restaurant in the 80-90’s) have earn the reputation of being an Avant Garde restaurant from Daniel Thomas head of the Art gallery then, in one of his article, referring to our unusual menu combination and style of presentation and cuisine.

My methods method of cooking required us to rub salted on the meat and leave it for a couple of hours. Then its boil until it’s almost cooks before the steam settles we marinade with ginger juice, rice wine and dark soy this would provide the rich colour and flavour to the skin. Then it’s deep-fried until the skin is crispy or until it’s a mahogany colour shinning with crispiness, its then plunge in iced water to cool.

Finally we braised in a mixture of nine sauces, Sweet chilli paste, Tahinni, red and white fermented beancurd, fermented brown beans, hoi sin sauce, oysters sauce, superior light soy, dark soy, star anis, dried chilli, finally some rock candy sugar to give this dish its character and I use wood fungus as the a compliments to the braised dish it adds to the dish, taking on the flavour of the dish it also add texture almost as past of the pork hock, the meat covered with a darkish brown sauce, shaped almost like a miniature Ayer’s rock. But when you sink your teeth into the meat, the texture of skin looks like the skin of elephant the texture is uniquely, succulent gelatinous cartilage like texture, and the meat is almost falling a part yet creamy and architecturally held together and moist. The flavour soars to a multitude of salty, sweet, nutty, spiced mildly hot, pungent and fragrant with spiced anis. Harmoniously blended just like the red wine flavour it’s uniquely undescribed in taste it is so pleasurable to eat and with anticipation. After a lot of rehearsal I create the ‘Pork Hock with wood fungus’

Twenty years on 2008 almost every Chinese restaurant have a version of a pork Hock dish.

Tim Pak Poy remembers the dish started in the very early eighties. Most popular with wine faculty who proudly order and eat whole pork pock and wash it down with a Rhone or Bordeaux.

It became one of Neddy’s signature dish, every wine maker, journalist fell in love with this dish .It is this dish that help celebrate winery mild stone, wine maker’s birthday almost everyone likes to match their red with this dish.

So I decided to serve this pork hock dish once again on my menu revisited with a new look to go with my tasting menu. It even went across interstate in the nineties, After the published of My Food where the recipes is describe in detail a host of then young chef around the country like Jeff Lindsay in Melbourne proudly show me his Pork Hock dish on the menu cooked from my book. And Russell Armstrong in Brisbane use the same dish in his wine bar restaurant proves to be one of the most popular dishes among wine lovers. The love the challenge to perform the task of trice cooking the pork hock and balance the flavour with those sauces. To the die heart wine buffs eating this pork hock and wood fungus dish, is like me having a dose of my weekly laksa hit .I sure asked around you could get lots of story of Cheong’s Pork Hock and Wood fungus dish and Clarendon Hills red wine. Best way to celebrate trice cooking this pork hock dish.