Taiwanese style Braised Pork with Carrots and Mushrooms

Made Taiwanese style soy braised pork tonight. This is one of my favorite because it is so easy to make, short time taken and yummy to eat with rice.

Serving: 2 Pax

Ingredients

1. 2 medium size Collar (neck) pork.
2. Pre soaked Fresh Chinese/Japanese Mushrooms - (amount subjective, at least 4 will be nice.)
3. Carrot strips (amount subjective - usually half a carrot will do)
4. 4 big Garlic cloves - coarsely chopped
5. Dark Soy Sauce (Using Taiwanese Kim Lan brand) （老抽／黑酱油）

6. （Kim Lan brand) Soy Paste (金阑酱油膏）

7. Rock Sugar & fine sugar

8. Wu Siang Fen - 1 tsp

9. Fried Onion Shallots - 2 tbsp.

10. Oil for frying (am using coconut or olive oil)

11. 8 Soaked Red dates, deseeded.

12: Pine nuts (optional)

Prepare sauce

1. Mix 1/2 cup of soy sauce with 1/3 cup Soy paste (you can lessen the portion. I dont even rem if its 1/2 cup coz I do a visual estimate)

2. Mix in the Wu Siang Fen

3. Put in 1 tsp of brown/white sugar and 5 small rock crystal cube sugar. 

4. Pour in 2 cup of water

Cooking Steps

1. Cut the pork into cube or slice bite size.

2. Heat 2 Tbsp of oil. Stir fry chopped garlic until just light brown, throw in the pork and fry together till pork is cooked in wok. About 5mins.

3. Pour in prepared sauce. Lower to medium flame. Cover lid for 5mins and stir.

Optional: (4. If you have earthen pot or those ceramic pot, it is best to use them over metal wok to gives tenderise the meat as it absorb the flavour. However if you have none, you can still use wok. Transfer from wok to earthen pot if you can. Cover lid.)

5. Mix in the fried Onion Shallots. Estimate 2 tbsp or more if you like.

6. Mix in mushroom strips & the 2 red dates.

7. taste the sauce, if too salty, add more water.

8. Cover and simmer over low flame for 15mins. 

9. Add carrot strips now. Taste the sauce. if it is still not sweet, add a few more cube rock sugar or you can wait till after you add carrot to decide. (carrots will also sweeten the sauce) .

Soy sauce gets saltier when cook over time, so add more water if necessary. it's subjective so I wont indicate how much to pour in.

10. Cover simmer till meat is tender. Generally another 10-15mins give or take.

11. Garnish with Pinenuts.