Category: Pork

Crispy Sichuan-Pepper Pulled Pork by The Mala Market

How to Cook With Huajiao / Non-Spicy / Pork / Sichuan Pantry Compatible

Sichuanish BBQ: Crispy Sichuan-Pepper Pulled Pork

Sichuan BBQ Pork Candy Here’s the extent of this Sichuan-ish BBQ recipe for crispy Sichuan-pepper pulled pork: Get a pork shoulder with a nice fat cap; score the fat in a diamond shape; rub the whole thing generously with kosher salt, sugar and freshly ground Sichuan pepper; put it in the oven at very low heat, and leave it there. Take it out many hours later, pull it apart with some forks, and marvel at its perfect mix of moist, tender meat and crispy, spicy fat. Really, there’s not much...

Chinese New Year / How to Cook With Chinese Black Vinegar / How to Cook With Doubanjiang / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / How to Cook With Tianmianjiang / Pork

Sichuan Spareribs With Mala BBQ Sauce (Mala Paigu): Cooking With Grace Young

Happy Year of the Pig! I can’t help myself each year from trying to match a recipe with the Chinese New Year animal. Some years are a stretch—dragon, monkey—but pig, the meat supreme of China, has to be the easiest. Chinese spareribs are a pork dish I’ve never tackled, so I went whole hog, calling on Chinese food authority Grace Young for some guidance on Chinese BBQ and making oven-roasted Sichuan spareribs two distinct ways. We have Grace to thank for this wet-rub rib based on Cantonese barbecue spareribs. She...

Yunnan clay pot mixian

Noodles / Plant / Pork / Restaurant Classics / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Shaguo Mixian (砂锅米线) Yunnan Clay Pot Rice Noodles with Pork and Spicy Pickled Greens

The Magic of Mixian In my personal pantheon of noodles, Yunnan mixian ranks up there pretty high. There are two main reasons for this: rice noodles and pickles. Since my discovery of pho a couple decades ago, I’ve preferred my soups with rice noodles vs wheat, mainly because of their springy texture and lightness. But when you take a soup that does in fact resemble pho (Yunnan borders Vietnam, after all, and food traditions don’t respect borders) and add spicy pickled mustard greens to it, along with fresh greens, a...

Beef, Lamb & Game / How to Cook With Doubanjiang / Pork / Poultry

Cooking With Pixian Doubanjiang: Sichuan Sauce for Grilling & Roasting

A New ‘Cue I’m not sure why I’d never thought before to add Pixian chili bean paste to my grilling marinade, because it’s a match made in BBQ heaven. Pixian doubanjiang is a combination of salt, spice and umami (in the form of fermented fava beans). Meat loves salt, most people reading this love spice, and everyone loves umami, so douban ticks all the boxes. It’s a BBQ sauce like you’ve never had before, but it doesn’t hit you over the head with any of those sensations, enhancing the meat...

Non-Spicy / Pork / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

All-Purpose Pork and Pickled Green Bean Stir-fry (Roumo Jiangdou)

If Laab Were Sichuan As you all know, I did not grow up in Sichuan watching my mom cook dinner every night and learning her secrets for family-style, home-cooked food, and neither, for that matter, did Fongchong. Therefore, the Sichuan food I know and try to recreate here is generally restaurant dishes. Some of them are rather quick and easy, but most are not. However, we do cook quick-and-easy Sichuan food in our house, and this is one of those homey, any-night recipes I’ve learned on my own. Roumo jiangdou,...

Chengdu zajiang mian

How to Cook With Sesame / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / How to Cook With Tianmianjiang / Noodles / Pork / Restaurant Classics / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Introducing Zajiang Noodles (Zajiangmian, 杂酱面), Chengdu’s Favorite Noodle

Just Don’t Call It Zhajiangmian As we learned in a guest post from Chengdu Food Tours’s Jordan Porter, zajiangmian is one of Chengdu’s most popular noodles. It is a heartier big brother to the diminutive dandan noodles, which is generally served in a small snack size, making the meal-size zajiangmian the more-common and more-loved noodle in modern Chengdu. But first, I want to share my closer-to-home inspiration: the zajiangmian at Mian, a real-deal Sichuan/Chongqing noodle shop in L.A.’s San Gabriel Valley. Opened by Tony Xu, chef-owner of the incomparable Chengdu Taste, it has...

How to Cook With Doubanjiang / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / How to Cook With Tianmianjiang / North (Shanxi, Beijing) / Pork / Sichuan Pantry Compatible

Eddie Huang and Tianmianjiang Pork (Jing Jiang Rousi, 京酱肉丝)

On Immigrants and Chinese Food: ‘No Coupons’ The National Immigrant Integration Conference came to Nashville this past weekend, and one of my favorite immigrant writers showed up to give the opening talk. The one and only Eddie Huang—Taiwanese-Chinese American chef, author and provocateur  of Fresh Off the Boat and Huang’s World fame—was in fine form (and even wore a suit!), giving a speech he wrote called “No Coupons.” I dragged my little Chinese immigrant along with me, hoping she would take to heart what he had to say.  He talked about...

Braises / Chinese New Year / East (Jiangnan, Shanghai) / How to Cook With Shaoxing Wine / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Non-Spicy / Pork / Restaurant Classics

Classic Shanghai Pork Belly: Hongshaorou (红烧肉), Red-Cooked Pork

Inspired by Red Cook: Hongshaorou I can’t tell you how many times I’ve red-cooked something. I’ve red-cooked the traditional pork belly many a time and have also tried red-cooking pork shoulder, chicken thighs and beef short ribs. But I’ve never settled on a favorite 红烧肉 (hóngshāoròu), red-cooked meat, recipe or method. Perhaps because I’m not Chinese, and my mom (or other family member) did not hand one down to me. But I have to have one. Because I have to pass the family red-cooking recipe down to my Chinese daughter. Otherwise,...

How to Cook With Chinese Spices / Noodles / Pork / Soups & Stews / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Pork Rib Noodle Soup in Sichuan Broth (Paigu Mian)

Chengdu Challenge #26: Paigu Mian, My Favorite Mistake This is one of those recipes that is the result of a beautiful mistake. I was merely attempting to make Sichuan-style stock when I ended up with an entire soup. My daughter has been mostly deprived of one of her favorite foods—homemade soup—because I don’t particularly like or crave soup and just don’t ever think about making it. She grew up in China eating freshly made wonton soup every morning for breakfast at school. I grew up in Oklahoma eating Campbell’s chicken noodle...

Yu Xiang Pork

How to Cook With Chinese Black Vinegar / How to Cook With Doubanjiang / Pork / Sichuan Pantry Compatible / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Yuxiang Pork (Yuxiang Rousi, 鱼香肉丝)

Chengdu Challenge #25: This Is Not Pork in Garlic Sauce Yuxiang pork is often translated in the U.S. as pork in garlic sauce. But yuxiang is so much more than a garlic sauce. It’s sweet-and-sour-and-chili-and-garlic sauce. To me, it is what sweet-and-sour sauce should be, but more intriguing and deep. It’s got the tang of dark vinegar just barely tamed by sugar, plus the trinity of garlic-ginger-scallions. But garlic does not dominate, it is just perfectly balanced with the slightly sweet-and-sour and the spicy chili element. The literal translation of...

How to Cook With Doubanjiang / How to Cook With Douchi / How to Cook With Tianmianjiang / Pork / Sichuan Pantry Compatible / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Stir-Fried Bacon in Sichuan Bean Sauces (Chao Larou, 炒腊肉)

Chengdu Challenge #20: Once-Cooked Pork Stir-fried bacon in Sichuan bean sauces is a cousin to 回锅肉 (huíguōròu), or twice-cooked pork, and in many ways, the more appealing cousin, because A) you only have to cook it once; and B) it’s bacon! It may be the less popular cousin in Sichuan, but it’s definitely a Sichuan native, and I’ve had it there several times, made with the highly smoked, supremely rich local bacon (larou). For authentic twice-cooked pork, you have to boil a pork belly, chill it, slice it and stir-fry it. For...

Chinese New Year / How to Cook With Yacai / Non-Spicy / Plant / Pork / Restaurant Classics / Sichuan Pantry Compatible / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Sichuan Dry-Fried Green Beans (Ganbian Sijidou, 干煸四季豆)

Chengdu Challenge #16: Frying, Old-School vs. New Yes, I know it seems wrong to deep-fry green vegetables, but oh, it tastes so right. 干煸四季豆 (gānbiān sìjìdòu) actually means dry-fried green beans, but almost everyone nowadays quickly deep-fries them. That’s how the Sichuan Higher Institute of Cuisine teaches the dish, and that’s how I’ve always done it. But when I was researching the dish, I found that the recipe for ganbian sijidou in Mrs. Chiang’s Szechwan Cookbook calls for dry-frying the green beans the old-school way, for more than two hours,...