Braised Pork Rice （ Lu Rou Fan ）

My friend Teresa is a great cook and she often look at recipes and cook something complicated.   I like to ask her for recipes since I don't like to go through recipe books nor do I have the patience to take the time to go through the long process of making a dish.  This is a dish that's fairly easy to prepare in huge quantities ahead of time and is well loved by all of us. It's just like spaghetti: the older it gets, the better it tastes.    She told me the most important ingredients to use in this dish are the 5 spices and the shallots.

Ingredients:

1 lb. Pork (Pork that has at least 50% fat is preferred)
6 Shiitake mushrooms (soak in cold water for few hours)
3 to 4 Shallots
2 gloves of garlic
1 and 1/2 Tbsp 5 spices (see Note below for description of spices)

1. Cut out the pork skin if any, cut the pork in tiny pieces.(marinate with some soy sauce and sugar)
2. Soak the shiitake mushrooms and dice into small pieces.
3. Chopped the garlic and  shallots
4. Heat pan on high,add the pork and keep stirring until all fat comes out.
5. Scoop out the pork and put aside.
6. Using the same pan (which still has some oil in it), add the shallots and stir fry until fragrant.
7. Add in the mushrooms and stir fry
8. Add in some soy sauce, rock sugar and 5 spices (1 tbsp)
9. Add a little water just enough to cover the pork.
10. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes.
11. To make boiled eggs, add eggs into cold water and cook for 12 to 15 minutes.
12. Remove the eggshell and add in to the pork while it's still simmeingr.
13. Turn the eggs in the pot occassionally so the eggs are covered by the sauce and will evenly brown.
14. The dish is done after 30 minutes.
15. Serve egg and some pork mixture over rice.

Note:
1. This dish tastes well with fatty pork, you can remove the excess fat when it's done stir frying.
2. The 5 spices consists of fennel,anise,cinnamon, gloves, and ginger. It's supposed to be added in before ready to be served.  You can find a bottle of this blend of spices in any Chinese grocery store.