Every Chinese takeaway in the country does a version of this and most of them do it better than you will the first time. The seasoning is not the secret. The second fry is. Once to cook it through, once to make it crack. Skip that and you have a pale chop in wet cornflour.
The jar is doing three jobs here. Salt, pepper, and the savoury hit restaurants get from a spoon of stock powder. You do not need all three separately.
25 mins. Serves 4.
Ingredients
- 600g Pork chops, bone in, cut into 3cm pieces
- 1 tbsp Shaoxing wine
- 1 tsp Salt
- 1 tsp Chinese five spice
- 2 tbsp Cornflour
- Neutral oil, for frying, plus 1 tsp
- 3 cloves Garlic, finely chopped
- 1 Red capsicum, diced small
- 2 Spring onions, sliced
- 1 tbsp Plateit Salt n' Pepper 'Spice Bag' Seasoning
- Plenty of cracked black pepper
Method
- Pierce the chops all over with the tip of a knife before you cut them up. It lets the marinade in and it breaks the muscle down. Then cut into 3cm pieces.
- Wine, salt and five spice into a bowl with the pork. Work it in with your hands until the liquid has gone.
- Cornflour over the top. Mix until every piece is coated. If it stays powdery, a small splash of water. Then a teaspoon of oil through it so the pieces do not weld together in the pan.
- Oil to 180°C. Pork in, about 3 mins, until cooked through and pale gold. Onto a rack, not paper.
- Oil up to 200°C. Pork back in for 20 seconds. That is the whole dish. It should come out golden, blistered and loud.
- Nearly all the oil out. Garlic and capsicum over high heat, under a minute, until it smells like the restaurant.
- Pork back in. Plateit Salt n' Pepper over the lot, plenty of black pepper, spring onion. Toss twice and get it out.
Do this: Rack, never paper. Paper steams the bottom of everything you just spent two fries getting crisp.
