Stewed Pork Shoulder

This is another dish from my grandmother. It's easy to make, and you end up with very tender meat and flavorful sauce.

Ingredients

• Pork Shoulder
  • The ideal cut for this dish would be a bone-in, skin-on pork shoulder. But if you can't find it, skin-off and/or boneless is fine too.
  • You can use a cut anywhere from 1-2 pounds up to 5 pounds. A larger cut will require a longer cooking time, which will cause the sauce to reduce more than originally intended, so just keep this in mind.
• 1/4 cup rock sugar
  • You can find this in either the asian aisle, or an asian grocery store.
  • If you can't find it, you can use normal granulated sugar, but you'll want to reduce the amount of sugar to 3 tablespoons.
• 1 cup soy sauce
• 2 1/4-inch slices of ginger
  • Alternately, 1 tsp of ginger powder
• 2-3 green onions, cut into thirds
• 1/2 head of garlic, peeled and minced
• 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
  • You can increase to 1 tsp if you want it to be more spicy, or reduce or omit if you want it to be more mild
• Salt

Directions

1. Heat a pan on medium-high until hot. Add a little cooking oil or cooking spray, and sear the pork shoulder for 1-2 min on each side until browned and the fat is rendered.
2. Put the seared pork shoulder, rock sugar, soy sauce, ginger, green onions, garlic, and red pepper flakes into a pot.
3. Fill the pot with enough water to cover the meat (or, whatever you can fit without boiling over)
4. Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer until the pork is tender, 1-3 hours depending on the size of your cut. If your cut is particularly large, you can break it up partway through to help it cook.
5. Remove from heat. Taste the sauce and add salt to taste. If you needed a longer cook time, the sauce may reduce enough to not need additional salt.
6. Serve over rice.