Caramel Pork with Hong Kong Noodles (EYH)

The Pork

• 1 1/2 inches fresh ginger, peeled and minced
• 1 tablespoon five-spice powder
• 1/4 cup hoisin sauce
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup Shaoxing wine or dry sherry [I already owned dry sherry.]
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 to 1 1/2 pounds boneless pork shoulder, cut into 1-inch strips [Stupid me didn't know what that meant and cut them up in stir-fry size slices.]

Minced garlic.

Not exactly beaten to a fine paste in my new mortar and pestle, but everything is certainly obliterated.

Marinade.

Pork is marinated for at least 12 hours and up to 2 days.  In my case, probably about 24 hours.

I assume this would've been easier to rig up if I had cut strips of the shoulder an inch in width.

They're roasted in the oven on a rack over 1/2 inch of water.

Fried Garlic Garnish

• 5 garlic cloves, peeled
• 1/2 cup olive oil

Garlic cloves are covered with cold water, brought to a boil and drained twice to cut some of their edge.

Couldn't understand how I could possibly use a candy thermometer to measure the temperature of 1/4 cup of oil so my garlic cloves aren't golden brown but mahagony.

Caramel Sauce

• 2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup soy sauce

Two cups of sugar.

Cooked down into caramel.

And thinned out with the soy sauce and a 1/2 cup of water.

Finish the Dish

• Salt
• 1 pound Hong Kong or wonton noodles
• 1 tablespoon plus 1 splash neutral oil, such as grapeseed or canola
• 4 scallions, thinly slice on the bias
• 2 tablespoons sil gochu ["You could certainly substitute thinly sliced fresh chilies or crushed dried chili as long as there's some heat to balance the salty sweetness of the sauce."]

I dunno if I really have a vessel where I can create an ice bath to shock blanch noodles.  Did a rather poor job transferring the noodles over.
I don't have a lot of experiences with ice baths yet.

Thrown together with the oil in the pan to heat the noodles back up.

 
Throw the pork in the caramel sauce and heat those up as well.

Toss the noodles, pork, and sauce and top with garlic and sil gochu.  Or in my case, gochugaru, Korean ground red chili.
How did I like this dish?  It was pretty satisfying I must admit, but involves a whole bunch of culinary gymnastics to pull together.  Perhaps for Thanksgiving.