Red-cooking is a popular technique for slow-cooking meat, poultry, and even tofu in a soy-based liquid to give it a deep reddish brown color. Traditionally, the cooking liquid is reserved and used repeatedly, as its flavor intensifies with each use. The meat need not be browned, it gets plenty of color and flavor from the soy sauce. Use a good quality, naturally fermented soy sauce if you can find one. Serve with plain white rice. I got this recipe from The Joy of Cooking. It is sooooooo wonderful. This also works very well in the crock pot on low for 8 hours, or high for 3-4 hours.

Ingredients

8 serv.

oil1 tablespoon
scallions, cut crosswise in thirds↗4
large garlic cloves, crushed↗2
ginger, thinly sliced↗
water (or 2 cups chicken stock and 2 cups water)↗4 cups
dark soy sauce↗1 cup
rice wine, Scotch or 3/4 cup sherry wine↗3⁄4 cup
packed brown sugar1⁄4 cup
star anise or 1 1/2 teaspoons anise seed4
(3 inch) cinnamon sticks↗1
(7 lb) picnic pork shoulder↗1

Step-by-step instructions

1
Heat oil in a large, heavy Dutch oven over medium-high heat.
2
Add scallions, garlic, and ginger and toss in the oil until heated through, about 1 minute.
3
Add water (or stock and water mix), soy sauce, rice wine (or scotch or sherry), brown sugar, anise, and cinnamon stick.
4
Bring to boil, then add pork picnic shoulder.
5
Turn the meat to cover it with liquid and color it.
6
Reduce the heat and cover the pan.
7
Simmer, turning the meat every hour and basting it, until it's fork tender, 3 to 4 hours.
8
Remove the meat from the pan and spoon off the fat from the pan juices.
9
Slice the meat.
10
Serve with the pan juices.

Source: food.com

Original recipe ↗

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