I’ve been continuing to read and enjoy Fuchsia Dunlop’s Invitation to a Banquet (I admit that my fingers keep wanting to type Invitation to a Beheading).
And I’ve been especially taken with something she describes called “Loving Mother’s Dish.”
The story goes that there was once a woman whose son travelled to Beijing to sit the imperial civil service exams. While waiting for his return she prepared his favourite dish, a slow cooked stew of pork and eggs.
But travelling in imperial China was no better than traveling on British railways and the son didn’t get back on the day he was expected. She took the stew off the stove, went to bed, and got up next day and simmered it some more on the second day.
Again the son didn’t arrive so she stewed it some more, but he did arrive on this, the third day. Dunlop writes, “the stew had been heated up three times, and the meat was inconceivably tender and unctuous, the sauce dark and profound.’? All of which I can believe. But what about the eggs?
I have never eaten an egg that’s been stewed for three days but I think the end result would not be profound in any ordinary sense of the word.
I haven’t been able to find a recipe for “Loving Mother’s Dish” but I did manage to find this on a website called fooddelicacy.com
It’s braised pork belly and eggs in soya sauce: the cooking time is an hour and 15 minutes.
