STEWED PORK LEGS IN SOY SAUCE

Tomorrow is LUNAR NEW YEAR.. 2012  is a water dragon year.. largely celebrated in most Asia countries.. including my family back home. My mom usually cooked various meals to celebrate it with all my family, now she is getting old so my family dine out the celebration..

In this time of year, I'm feeling homesick.. I miss the family gathering, miss the foods, the chats, the laughs.. so to minimalize my homesickness I cooked our comfort foods, baking cake too

This year I chose PORK LEGS.. it's usually served in my family for big occasion such as LNY, one of our favorite foods.. I rarely cook it, as it's so fattening, but it's a good excuse for celebrating LNY

At our Asian stores pork legs and pork hocks are easily found, usually cut, cleaned and frozen, so I bought six pieces of the pork hocks, about 1 and 1/2 lbs, and I added 1/2 lbs of skin on pork leg meat..

It's a bit complicated to make a tasty stewed pork legs, but when it's cooked.. it worth every minute of the time we spent..

Let's start..

What we need:
- 6 cut pork hocks, big chunk skin on pork leg meat
- 1 lbs of raw peanut, soak in boiled water, drain
- 2 bulb of garlic, peel and smash
- 10 dried shiitake mushroom, wash, soak in a big bowl of boil water
- for the seasoning: 1 cup of soy sauce, 1 cup of rice wine, 1/2 cup of dark brown sugar, and 1/2 cup of vinegar

Method:
- boil pork hocks and pork leg, let it simmer for 10 minutes, discard the water
- cut the meat in chuck pieces
- in a big pan, put back the hocks and meats, slowly pan fry them in medium heat, until all brown and some of the fat come out, take out the meats and pour out most of the fat.. leave a bit to brown garlic
- meanwhile.. prepare the slow cooker, put the meats in, peanut, add in soaked shiitake mushroom with the water, browned garlic, add soysauce and rice wine, let them cook on high for 3 hours
- add brown sugar and vinegar, cook for another 30 minutes to 1 hour depend on the tenderness of the meats,  add more salt if needed

if using regular pot, let them boil, then reduce the heat, to simmer for hours, stir occasionally

To complete the feast... stir fry spinach with garlic ..

and the cakes, and the sweet cake, and the sweet snacks and the hung bao (red envelopes), like every year, we get it from my mom.. thank you mom.. KHIUNG HI FAT CHOY, FUNG PAU LOI.. HAHA.. MISS YOU AND LOVE YOU