Pork Skin Jelly (猪皮冻)

Step 1

Clean the pork skin thoroughly. Put it into cold water together with cooking wine, bay leaves, star anise, peppercorns, ginger slices and green onion. Simmer over medium-low heat for 10 to 15 minutes until a chopstick can pierce through the pork skin easily. Stir and flip the pork skin occasionally during cooking to prevent it from sticking and burning at the bottom of the pot.

Put pork skin into the rice cooker, add cooking wine, ginger slices, green onion, star anise, bay leaves, and Sichuan peppercorns. Pour in clear water to fully submerge the pork skin.

Step 2

Take out the cooked pork skin, rinse it with clean cold water and let it cool down completely. Scrape off all excess fat from the inner side of the pork skin.

Start the soup cooking mode and boil for 40 minutes.

Step 3

Rinse the pork skin again to wash away residual grease, then cut it into thin strips. Lay the strips aside to drain all water.

Take out the cooked pork skin, scrape off excess fat on the inner side completely, then cut the pork skin into thin strips.

Rub the pork skin with salt repeatedly to remove excess fat, then rinse thoroughly with clean water.

Step 4

Place the shredded pork skin into a food container. Pour in cooled boiled water or pure water. Cover the lid, steam in a rice cooker for 45 minutes. After steaming, take it out to cool naturally, then refrigerate overnight.

Clean the pot, put the shredded pork skin back in, add filtered original soup (the ratio of pork skin to soup is 1:2), and cook for another 60 minutes until the soup turns thick and sticky.

Step 5

Take the container out of the fridge the next day. The pork skin mixture will be fully congealed into jelly.

Pour the soup and pork skin into a container, let it cool down naturally, then refrigerate for 4 hours until fully solidified.

Step 6

Unmold the solid pork skin jelly from the container.

Take out the solid pork skin jelly, slice it, and serve with seasoned dipping sauce.

Step 7

Cut the pork skin jelly into neat slices.

Step 8

Make a dipping sauce and serve with the jelly. The pork skin jelly is cold, translucent and chewy.

Tips

It takes time to cut the pork skin into fine strips.

Dipping Sauce Recipe

Minced garlic, chili peppers, light soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil and white sesame seeds, mixed well.

For matching dipping sauce recipe, please refer to Spicy Sichuan Wontons & Spicy Dry-Mixed Wontons in our dish list.

Pork skin jelly is also the key filling for Chinese soup dumplings (xiao long bao). It melts into rich soup when steamed, making dumplings juicy and flavorful. Frozen soup dumplings are available in Chinese supermarkets overseas, but homemade pork jelly allows you to make fresh soup dumplings from scratch.

Mix chopped garlic, chili, light soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, and white sesame seeds well.