Instant Pot, Or Not

Tis the season for braises, soups and stews, and that’s as true for Chinese food as it is for Western cuisines. Americans tend to think of Chinese food as all stir-fries, all the time (Just try to find a braise or stew in a Panda Express!). But comfort food in Sichuan—especially in the winter, but even in the summer—almost always includes a long-braised meat of some kind, often with vegetables, in the kind of dish we’d call a stew. In fact, a popular type of homey Sichuan restaurant foregoes stir-fries altogether and offers only big cauldrons filled with various hongshao or “red-braised” stews and an array of cold dishes/salads to go with them.

These shaocai dishes are usually red-braised, or hongshao, which, in most parts of China, means they’re cooked with a healthy dose of soy sauce for taste and color. But in Sichuan the red color and flavor usually come from chili bean paste—and, preferably, the super-umami version of doubanjiang made in Pidu/Pixian and aged for years. I mean, if there’s anywhere you want the depth of flavor and funk that aged Pixian douban delivers, it’s in a braise, right?

Pixian Douban Braises in Pixian Itself

A couple of springs ago when Fongchong and I were visiting doubanjiang makers in Pixian, the staff at one of them took us to a business lunch at a local restaurant. They stressed it was nothing fancy, but the casual countryside place with all-outdoor seating at big round tables turned out to serve home-style cooking at its best.

Our hosts had pre-ordered one chicken, and the restaurant had killed, prepped and cooked it for us before we arrived. It then came to the table in the form of three hongshao dishes and one cold chicken dish in red oil. The meal was rounded out with four different dishes of greens and one stir-fried meat, a twice-cooked pork in which the douban was swapped out for douchi, fermented black soybeans. They probably made that swap because all three of the hongshao chicken dishes made use of the local Pixian douban. And yet—they all tasted distinctly different! You can see in the photos that one featured meaty chicken and potatoes, another chicken offal and fresh green erjingtiao chilies, and the third boney chicken bits and wild Chinese celery (with the breasts going to the cold dish).

It was a feast; it was largely cooked ahead; and this one chicken fed seven of us! It was a lesson I took to heart on how to make a Chinese feast at home: Braises free the cook from an endless round of last-minute stir-fries while also stretching the food to feed more grateful mouths. 

There are as many hongshao recipes as there are cooks, and you can never have too many in your back pocket. But this may be the red-braising recipe I pull out the most often. It’s the one I devised for chopstick-size pork riblets, one of our favorite family meats. We still love the classic Shanghai-style super-glazed red-braised pork belly I learned from Kian Lam Kho and the brothy beef recipe I use for hongshao beef noodle soup. But this one for pork ribs is the go-to. It’s based on the oldest, bestest Pixian chili bean paste, rounded out with brown sugar, black vinegar, soy sauce and the sweet heat of ginger. The fermented fava beans and chili add depth of flavor and mild heat that dial up the umami without necessarily tasting like douban.

(Red-braised dishes are actually more brown than red, and I learned from Kian, who’s also known as Red Cook due to his expertise in hongshao, that that’s because Mandarin doesn’t have a stand-alone character for brown!)

I make this dish in the Instant Pot, but it’s easily converted to a stove-top pot, for those of you who don’t have or want to invest in an electric pressure cooker—or who plan further ahead for dinner than I do. You’ll just have to cook it for about three times longer. But I have become a real Instant Pot devotee because I like knowing that I can make a dish that tastes like it’s braised for hours in just a little over one hour while continuing to toil over my computer instead of the pot.

This recipe does not make a big batch of broth but just enough concentrated sauce to wet your rice or noodles. Add more water (but not too much) if you want it brothy. And add more spices (Chinese black cardamom, Sichuan pepper, star anise, etc.) if you like. Or mix up the vegetables. We like the daikon (or other white Asian radish) because its crispy texture and light peppery taste is a nice contrast with the pork. (In fact, Fongchong loves the daikon radish even more than the ribs.) But you could also use potatoes or turnips. And a handful of cilantro adds a fresh green accent, but scallions or green chilies would also fill that role.

Make this hongshao recipe your own!

If you love hongshao, try the original Classic Shanghai Pork Belly: Hongshaorou (红烧肉) or my family’s favorite Red-Braised Beef Noodle Soup (Hongshao Niurou Mian, 红烧牛肉面), also Instant Pot-friendly!