Chinese Red Cooked Pork and Lamb Ragu: Two Reasons to Get Over Your Inhibitions and Consider Buying a Pressure Cooker

Red Cooked Pork

Red cooked pork is an indulgent bit of Chinese home cooking: braised belly served with rice and (hopefully) a vegetable of some sort. This unctuous dish has two big strikes against it for the modern home cook: long cooking time and outrageously high fat content. I wanted to find a way to enjoy the flavor of this classic without either of the drawbacks - a dish I could prepare off the cuff and enjoy often without coming to resemble the source of the meat itself. Replacing the pork belly with shoulder meat was a good start. Shoulder still has enough fat content to yield a good result. The dish lost some richness, but remained delicious. The next step was replacing a long braise in a clay pot with half an hour in a pressure cooker. I wouldn’t use a pressure cooker for belly (which takes to braising so well), but it worked well with the very adaptable shoulder meat. I ended up with an incredibly easy dish that can be prepared in less than 40 minutes, yet never fails to impress guests. If a pressure cooker isn’t in the cards for you, this recipe works equally well gently simmered for over an hour until the meat is fork tender. By cutting the cooking time down substantially, the pressure cooker allows you to throw this together casually on a weeknight.

(Serves 3-4 with rice and a green vegetable)

1 lb pork shoulder meat, trimmed and cut in cubes

3 scallions, trimmed and cut into 2” lengths

3 cloves garlic, peeled

2” piece fresh ginger, peeled

1 stick cinnamon

2 whole star anise

4 cups water

1/3 cup soy sauce

½ tsp crushed red pepper flakes (or more to taste)

¼ cup white vinegar

2 heaping Tbs brown sugar

Place all ingredients in pressure cooker and cook at pressure for half an hour. (If you’re not using a pressure cooker simmer covered for over an hour until fork tender). Strain the meat out of the liquid and place in serving bowl. Drizzle some of the cooking liquid over the meat (it’s also good on your rice).

Lamb Ragu

I first encountered this sauce at Max in the East Village, where the waiter boasted that it had been simmering all day. Right away I loved it, and set about recreating it in my own kitchen over the next few weeks. Although it was a favorite of mine I rarely made it at home, because I have little desire to baby-sit a pot on the stove for several hours. I’m all for slow food, but that’s too damned slow! 45 minutes in the pressure cooker gives a great result with an added bonus: lamb shank works just as well as stew meat, cutting the cost of the dish while adding a nice texture to the result. Since the pressure cooker does not evaporate nearly as much water as hours of simmering, my last step is to stir in a tablespoon or two of tomato paste to reach the desired thickness. This ragu is equally good over pasta and polenta. Only use fresh rosemary for this dish.

(Makes enough to sauce a pound of pasta. Leftover sauce freezes well.)

1 large, meaty lamb shank (or 2 smaller ones)

2 onions, chopped

3-6 cloves garlic, chopped

¼ tsp crushed red pepper

2-3 carrots, grated

1 large bay leaf

15.5 oz can tomatoes (whole, broken up by hand with juice or crushed)

½ cup white wine

10” sprig fresh rosemary (or equivalent smaller sprigs)

2 Tbs tomato paste

Salt and pepper

Oil for frying

Season shank with salt and pepper, and brown in small amount of oil in the bottom of pressure cooker. Add onions with a little more salt and pepper (and little more oil, if necessary) and sauté until nearly transparent. Add garlic, carrot and crushed red pepper. Deglaze with white wine. Add tomatoes and bay leaf. Bring up to pressure and cook for 45 minutes. The meat will be falling off the bone. Remove bone, and break the meat up into the ragu. Bring to a simmer over gentle heat (NOT under pressure), adding the rosemary. When the first leaf falls off the sprig (about ten minutes) remove the rosemary sprig, and fish out any leaves that have fallen into the sauce. Stir in tomato paste to thicken. Taste and reason. Use to sauce pasta or spoon over polenta.