After Anthony (Macau-Style Pork Burgers)

Combine the soy sauce, rice wine, black vinegar, sesame oil, garlic, five spice powder, and sugar in a medium bowl and stir to dissolve.

Place the ground pork in a large bowl. Pour just enough marinade into the bowl to saturate the pork without swamping it. Don’t let the marinade cover the surface of the meat.

You will have some marinade left over. Either discard it–there won’t be much–or freeze and label it for your next Macau pork outing (or try with chicken or fish).

Set out three large, shallow bowls. Place the flour in one, the egg in the second, and the panko in the third. Arrange a baking tray lined with parchment at the end of this assembly line. Add salt and pepper to the flour bowl; about teaspoon each is good.

Form the pork into whatever size shapes you like. I like to make smallish burger sized patties, but express yourself. Dip each patty into the flour, then the egg, then the panko. Lay on the tray.

Continue until the pork is used up.

Refrigerate the patties from 30 minutes to an hour to firm up.

Preheat the oven to 250F/120C/1/2 gas. Have a large, heatproof baking sheet or tray lined with paper towels ready.

Heat about an inch/3 cm oil in a large, heavy frying pan–I use cast iron. Turn the heat to medium high.You want the oil shimmering but not smoking; a few panko crumbs tossed in should sizzle.

Carefully slip in as many burgers as will fit without crowding. Crowding leads to spatters, which lead to burns. Trust me on this.

Cook the burgers 4-5 minutes a side. You want a nice crust. Carefully turn the burgers and repeat. If meat is burning, lower the heat. Set the pork burgers on the waiting baking sheet and slide into oven so the pork can finish cooking. Repeat with remaining pork burgers, layering baking sheet with paper towels if necessary, until remaining pork is cooked.

Serve burgers with hot sauce and buns if desired.

Toast Anthony with scotch or beer unless you are underage or otherwise wish to avoid alcohol.

Any leftover pork burgers will keep, refrigerated, up to four days. You can freeze these, but the breading will become soggy.

Notes:

The original recipe uses boneless pork chops, which you pound thin with a meat mallet, then marinate 1-12 hours before breading and cooking. I have also made this recipe with bone-in chops, either trimming out the bones or just pounding around them.

According to Padma Lakshmi’s Encyclopedia Of Spices And Herbs, five spice powder may contain star anise, cinnamon, cloves, Szechuan peppercorns, fennel seed, ginger, cardamom, licorice root, and dried orange peel. As I do not keep five-spice powder in the house, I instead combine equal amounts of star anise, fennel seed, Szechuan peppercorns, ginger, and cardamom in a mortar and pestle and use that.

I give the original recipe amount of brown sugar, but personally prefer using about  1/4 teaspoon palm sugar.

The original recipes places the chops in buns and eats them as sandwiches. John is not much of a sandwich eater, so we eat these with forks and knives. By all means make sandwiches if you prefer.