Double Fried Pork – Sichuan style
This is one of my favorite Chinese dishes, it is sometimes spicy, other times just a little, depending on the pepper you use. Making it at home allows you to choose the level of hotness. And it is freaking addictive. It is great as part of a variety of Chinese dishes served at once, with rice, for sharing with your beloved ones.
I discovered this dish at a local authentic Chinese restaurant, where they have European style Chinese food menu, and other authentic ones, Sichuan or Cantonese. And when I discovered this later one, I just got hooked on the real Chinese food. I like food kind of spicy, so that did not scare me. But to be honest, not all dishes are hot hot hot. Some are none at all, and some are just mildly.
Anyway, I ate so many times this dish, that I pursued in discovering how to do it. There are a lot of recipes for this on the Internet, and I suppose there is not a right and a wrong way. My version resembles the one I eat in the restaurant from my neighborhood. But I am probably doing it slightly different, who knows…
It is not difficult to make, it does not take too much, and it is absolutely amazing. Only the boiling of the pork belly and then cooling it might take a while. But now, in winter, I just leave the peace of meet outside a little while I cut the vegetables, and it is ready to slice.
If you can find, search for a quite fatty piece of meat, and a thick one. Last time, I just found a smoked one, with more meat than fat, and a little skinny. But it worked just fine, so use what you can find.
The secret of this dish is to use Toban Djan, aka Chili Bean Sauce. You can probably find it in the Chinese supermarkets, it is quite common. It gives the dish the saltiness, some hotness and a lot of umami Flavor.
We like to eat it with rice, and some other lighter additional dish, like boiled Pak Choi, or cucumber salad, or braised eggplant, because this is quite a strong flavored dish.
I hope you give it a try and let me know if you got hooked as I did.
Double Fried Pork – Sichuan style
Ingredients
- 150 g pork belly
- 2 green peppers ~120 g
- 8 small dried black Chinese mushrooms
- 2 small onions
- 2 garlic cloves
- 2 small pieces of fresh ginger
- 1 scallion
- 1 tsp Sichuan pepper corns
- 2 Tbsps. soy sauce
- 2 Tbsps. Chinese cooking wine optional
- 1 heaped tsp Toban Djan Chili Bean Sauce
- pinch of Chinese five spice
- 2 Tbsp. oil
Instructions
- Boil the pork belly with one piece of ginger, sliced, one onion, five spice, Sichuan pepper corns, 1 Tbsp. soy sauce, 1 Tbsp. cooking wine. Cover the meat with water. Boil until a chopstick pierces easily through the meat.
- Take out the pork belly and cool completely.
- In the remaining liquid, or in clean warm water, soak the black mushrooms.
- Chop finely the ginger and the garlic.
- Cut the onion and the pepper in big chunks.
- Cut the cooled pork belly into thin slices.
- In a wok drizzle the oil and place the pork slices in one layer.
- Stir and turn occasionally the slices onto their other side until golden.
- Make a place inside the middle and fry the ginger and garlic until fragrant, then add the peppers and the onion.
- Stir fry until vegetables are a little cooked, but still crunchy.
- Add the hydrated mushrooms, the Toban Djan, then the soy sauce, scallion and cooking wine.
- Stir for a minute and then serve.
Video
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