We love Szechuan food so much and it didn’t make sense if I didn’t make this very popular Szechuan dish – twice-cooked pork. I personally always find the red-looking dishes very addictive.
The utilization of dried chilis and Sichuan peppercorns set Sichuanese food different with other Chinese food. I always find these two combination addictingly good. The Sichuanese often describes that as Ma La 麻 辣 or numb and spicy.
Twice-cooked pork or known as “hui guo rou” (回 鍋 肉) in Chinese means “going back to the wok”. The meat is boiled until partly cooked and then stir-fried, so it is cooked twice and hence the name.
The twice-cooked pork is really a tasty dish and I can see why this is a favorite among the the Szechuanese. It is spicy and slightly sweet and not to mention the great flavor from the pork belly itself. So good people!
TWICE-COOKED PORK
Ingredients
- 1 lb pork belly
- 1 large leeks
- 2 Tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 Tbsp chili bean sauce
- 1 tsp sweet chili sauce
- 1 Tbsp fermented black beans
- 1 tsp sesame oil
- 1 Tbsp Shaoxing wine
- Soy sauce
Instructions
- Rinse the pork belly briefly in a cold running water. Place it in a pot and fill in water, just enough to cover the meat. Bring it to a boil and then slowly simmer for about 1 hour. Remove the pork belly from the pot and let it cool down and then put the meat into freezer for aout 15-20 minutes - this makes it easier to cut it thinly later on. Slice the meat to about 1/4-inch thickness and set aside
- Chop the leeks at an angle into thin slices. Refer to how to wash the leeks properly
- Heat 2 Tbsp oil in a wok over a medium flame, place the pork slices onto the wok and cook until they are brown on both sides, try not to crowd the wok as the meat will not brown properly because you ended up steaming the meat instead, so work in batches if you can and place the cooked meat on a clean plate while you working on others.
- You should have some oil in the wok, add in the chili bean sauce, sweet chili sauce and black beans and stir-fry until fragrant. Add the leeks and wine and stir fry until they are soft. Add the pork slices back into the wok and stir to mix everything. Season with a dash of soy sauce and have a taste, it should be spicy, kinda sweet but not too much and salty. Adjust seasoning if you like. Then add the sesame oil, have a good last stir and transfer to a serving plate and serve immediately
