Anyone who knows me knows that I adore pork. This love affair was sparked in my childhood, when I first discovered the joy of crimson red char siu pork and fragrant deep fried garlicky spare ribs (suun heung gwuk). Although these dishes were always must-haves when we went out to eat, I also savoured the more low-key pork dishes that Mum rustled up at home, like slow cooked hoisin pork belly and silky pork congee.

One of the most iconic Cantonese pork dishes of all is crispy five-spiced roast pork belly. It’s another restaurant favourite, but on special occasions at home Mum roasts up a big slab of belly that has been rubbed with lots of five spice powder and pricked so that the skin became ultra crispy in the oven. While it’s delicious on the day of roasting because of aforementioned crispiness, I think I’m even more obsessed with the magic that Mum performs on the leftovers.

The next day, when the cracking has became soft, she cooks the pieces of pork belly in a sweet joy sauce with spring onions for extra flavour. The result is sensational: a sticky sauce infused with five-spice flavour, and flavoursome pieces of pork with a slight tackiness from the cooked-down crackling. Although it’s an awesome recipe and a real treat to eat, it’s also a fairly long and involved process to make the crispy pork in preparation for the next-day dish. Today’s recipe reimagines that five-spiced porky and saucy goodness as a quick stir fry. It’s perfect for people who love the bouncy texture of quick-cooked pork belly, and a delicious sauce to smother all over rice.