1/2 lb slab bacon skin on (you'll probably need to go to a butcher to get this)
1/4 t salt
1/2 T soy sauce

1/2 onion, sliced
1/4 cup pickles, chopped
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 Tbs soy sauce
1/2 Tbs hoisin sauce
1/2 Tbs rice wine or sherry
2 T stock or water (or water with a little bullion)

1 package (about a pound) of noodles

Boil the whole piece of bacon in water for 10 min. (cut it up to fit it in the pan if you have to) Remove, pat dry, and rub with salt and soy sauce.

Semi-deep fry (in say 1 inch of oil) - this takes much less oil if you use a curved-bottomed cooking vessle like a wok.

if deep frying bacon is wrong, I don't want to be right

Cook for 6-8 min over medium-low heat. Remove and let cool.

Meanwhile, mix all the ingredients for the sauce and heat to blend. Kenneth calls for "red-in-snow" pickles, which I've found out are pickled mustard greens (very delicious, I've gotten cans of them before). However, I didn't know this when I was at the store, so I just bought whatever pickles looked good to me, in this case, some Sichuan pickled cucumber; plus I added some daikon pickles I had at home. These are about as different from the original recipe as you can get, so I don't imagine even gherkins or dill pickles would mess it up. (A very "dilly" dill might, though worth a try anyway).

So that's the 1/2 sliced onion, 1/2 T soy, 1/2 T rice wine, 1/2 T hoisin, 2 T stock or water, and your chopped pickles of choice.

Cut the bacon into 1 inch pieces and arrange, skin side down, in the dish. Pour the sauce over the top.

Steam for 40 min.

I used Shanghai noodles for my dish, but almost anything would work.

Ken's a little vague on how this part works, so I played it safe and pre-cooked the noodles.

When they were done, I cooled them down by running cold water over them, then arranged them on top of the pork, pressing the noodles down into the dish until it was totally full.

Bake another half hour.

Turn out onto a plate, quickly so the juice doesn't go everywhere.

Enjoy!

Today I served my tip-out pork with baby bok choy alongside, but any mild-flavored vegetable would be a nice counterpoint.