Red-cooked pork gave me Snape's hair

I've got Snape's hair!

Which is not to say that the poor man is wandering about bald, or that my normally light brown hair has suddenly gone black, or indefinably sinister and intriguing. But I have the same hair problem today, for the same reason. Sticky, and while not really dirty, it feels unpleasant.

Today I fulfill a long-standing promise to cook a friend a really nice Chinese meal in exchange for a huge favour she did me a good while ago. I decided to do my best dish, which is hong shao rou - red-cooked belly pork (I tried to put in swanky Chinese characters but my computer was having none of it. Imagine your favourite tacky Fengshui candle instead), which simmers subtly for hours and hours. The first hour it looks and smells like a rather horrid watery stew, but if you leave it long enough the meat softens and the sauce goes delightfully gooey. The process takes forever, though, and I'm always worried it won't thicken. Hence the incessant stirring and peering, and hence the Snape hair.

And I can't have a shower and wash it all away till late this afternoon, I've had the plumber in and I'm waiting for sealant to harden. I am starting to have another insight into why the man is so crabby all the time.

To fill in the time until I can wash that sauce right out of my hair, here's the recipe for red-cooked pork. If you're not paranoid and don't keep leaning over it, it won't even give you greasy hair.

( A delicious dish lurks under the cut )