A recipe

For the Chinese-ish pork belly from last night. Homages dues to HFW, the sublimely named Fuschia Dunlop and a restaurant in Bolzano in Northern Italy. I've nicked ideas and techniques from them all.

Take a slab of pork belly and cut in to thick strips, about 4cm across so they resemble fleshy vanilla slices. Pop in a pan, cover with water and boil for 5-10 minutes to bring out the scum. Drain, rinse pork of any scum, wipe pan clean and put everything back on the hob with some clean water. Adding some aromatics (chilli, star anise, ginger and garlic) to the water will do precious little to the flavour of the meat in the long run but make your house smell fantastic and get mouths watering. Don't leave them out.

Braise/poach/simmer for an hour and so until the meat is tender. Lift out of the stock and leave to cool before slicing across the meat to leave you with squares of pork belly, roughly 1cm thick and 4cm squared in size. Fire up a non-stick frying pan (you won't need any oil) and fry the pork squares on both sides until golden and crisp. Be careful, they will sizzle and spit. Pop them to one side on some kitchen paper.

Throw lots of finely sliced ginger, garlic and chilli into the pan (you may need to drain some of the pork fat first) and stir-fry, throw in some greens (bok choi seems appropriate, kale or cabbage would do just as well) and just as they begin to wilt return the pork to the pan. Splash in some Chinese cooking wine and soy (I used mainly Light for flavour with a bit of Dark for colour and syrupy-ness). Let the sauce reduce until dark and sticky, coating the meat and greens as it goes. A handful of sliced spring onions can go in last.

Take the pan to the table, the black sticky spicy bits on the pan are the secret to this dish. Encourage people to return the meat from their plates to the pan to wipe up all the goodness. Plain steamed rice will be just fine on the side.