Farmhouse stir-fried pork with green peppers

Source: Fuchsia Dunlop

Ingredients:

• 250g long green peppers
• 50g belly port or streaky bacon
• 200g lean boneless pork
• 1 tsp Shaoxing wine
• 1 tsp light soy sauce
• 0,5 tsp dark soy sauce
• 2 garlic cloves
• 2 tsp black fermented beans, rinsed
• salt
• 0,5 tsp potato flour, mixed with 2 tbsp everyday stock or water
• about 3 tbsp groundnut oil or lard for cooking

Method:

1. Cut off and discard stems of the peppers, and lice at a steep angle into 3cm chunks. Don't worry about the seeds - it's a peasant dish! Cut the belly port and the lean pork into fairly thin slices, set aside the belly pork. Add the Shaoxing wine and the soy sauces to the lean port and mix well, set aside.
2. Smear the wok with a little oil or lard and heat over a medium flame. Add the peppers and stir-fry, pressing them against the side of the work with your wok scoop or ladle, for about 5 minutes, until they are fragrant and tender and their skins a little golden and puckered. Remove the peppers from the wok and set them aside.
3. Remove any pepper seeds from the wok, and re-heat the wok over a hot flame until smoke rises, then add 2 tablespoons of the oil or lard and swirl around. Add the belly pork and stir-fry until the slices are tinged with gold.
4. Toss in the garlic and black beans and stir-fry briefly until fragrant, and then add the lean pork. When the pork has almost changed colour and lost most of its water content, return the peppers to the work and continue to stir fry for another minute or so, adding salt to taste.
5. If using the potato-flour mixture to add a professional gloss, give the mixture a stir and tip into the wok at the final stage, stirring just long enough for the sauce to cling to the meat.