Pork Jowl (Pork Cheeks) with Brown Sugar Rub

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I'm quite amazed that we're actually posting entries while away! Again, I did the photo processing just before going, then wrote the copy on the plane.

This dish is dedicated to Christina of Doesn't TaZte Like Chicken.

JS and I had dimsum one day with Christina and ET (of Doesn't TaZte Like Chicken), and Ben and Suanne (of Chowtimes). Christina picked the place: Top Gun J&C Restaurant.

We all agreed that we should order "unusual" items, and not the standard dimsum fare like har gow, siu mai, etc. So, we left it in Christina's capable hands.

One of the dishes was pork jowl (also called pork cheek), sliced into pieces. This led to a discussion of what we would do to such a jowl if we should buy one, seeing as we all haven't tried cooking it before.

We didn't think too much about this discussion. In fact, I believe Christina may have ordered the dish again to take home!

But, we happened to go to T&T later that afternoon, and along with our usual meats and produce, decided to get a packet of pork jowl after seeing its alluring self on the shelf.



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It's "polished", they say! I don't know what that means.

The small packet came with two pieces of meat. As you can see, this is not inexpensive.

But, look at the fat! Nice, eh?



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As an idea, Christina mentioned curing the meat, then roasting it and basting it with Korean barbeque sauce. I was too lazy to make anything too complicated, so I decided to take our beloved longganisa flavors and add a little Chinese twist.



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I made a little wet rub of brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce, grated garlic, and a touch of Maggi seasoning. My little "Chinese twist" is merely the addition of sesame oil.

The cheeks marinated in this mixture (it wasn't not really a cure) for about two days. Then, for ease of cooking, I decided to pan-fry them.



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The pork jowls shrunk!

I sliced the jowl pieces in an angle, copying the presentation at the restaurant to the best of my memory.



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The dish was quite tasty, although it could have used a tad more salt to balance the sugar.

Like at Top Gun J&C, the texture of our pork jowl was interesting. It was meaty and yet there was also a "crunchiness" to the meat, I think from the fat, strange as it sounds.

I can imagine this cut very nice slightly smoked, so maybe we'll try that next time.



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So, Christina, this is what we did with pork jowl. =)

More:
[eatingclub] vancouver Chinese

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We're submitting this to Regional Recipes, a blogging event created by Blazing Hot Wok that celebrates food from all over the world.

The region for this edition is China. The round-up will be hosted at Blazing Hot Wok and will be posted around/after August 20.

Regional Recipes information