However, to make the Crystal Pork Hock, one crucial step was still missing—steaming.
Anyone knowledgeable about cuisine knows that Crystal Pork Hock uses aspic to give the hock an additional shiny luster, thus earning its crystalline name.
But this crystal-clear quality isn't achieved by mere chance.
It requires intense steaming to render the collagen from the pork skin into a transparent broth, which creates the crystal-like effect upon solidifying.
If boiled, the broth would become murky, diminishing the crystal-like effect.
Lin Xu sliced the hock into wider strips, then cut them into large chunks. After cutting them all, he fetched the previously prepared pork skin and readied it for steaming in bowls.
Using bowls for steaming is a unique feature of the Crystal Pork Hock.
The advantage of this method is to prevent the broth from becoming murky due to excess meat. The less meat, the lower the chance of the broth turning cloudy, and the more pronounced the crystal effect.
