Pork Belly (2 ways) w/ Bao

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I had a mini dinner party yesterday, and saw it as the perfect opportunity to cook some pork belly and use my new steaming baskets for Bao.

Taking inspiration from some of the recent belly based videos, I sous vided one of them at 72 degrees for 10 hours in soy, garlic and star anise, and pressure cooked the other for 40 mins in doubianjiang, a little gochujang, beef stock, szechuan peppercorns and bay leaves, before slicing and searing both styles in a skillet.

Bao was made à la Chefsteps recipe, probably rolled them a little too thick, so they took a while to steam, but mad tasty none-the-less. Served with odd flavour sauce (a magnificent creation (from the Lucky Peach cookbook) involving chinese tahini, ma la chili oil, szechuan peppercorns, scallions, lots of garlic, soy and sesame oil all combined in the vitamix), dangerously strong homemade sambal, quick pickled cucumbers (in soy and fennel), hoi sin, chili crisp (the one with the wonderfully dour woman on the label), scallions and cilantro. They went down a treat!

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I've had a decent amount of really good chinese food with tahini, most recently Dan Dan noodles from an awesome spot in NYC. It's not a traditional ingredient, but in terms of flavor profile, it's right on, and it's a much less temperamental ingredient than sesame oil.