Twice-Cooked Pork

Chinese name: 回锅肉 (huí guō ròu) 
Style: Sichuan (Szechuan) Cuisine 
Characteristics: Twice-cooked pork is red and green in color, rich in taste. The pork slices in it is fat but not greasy.

 

As the saying goes, if you haven't eaten twice-cooked pork in Sichuan, you haven't actually been to Sichuan, even if you have. Twice-cooked pork, sisiter dish of  Fried Pork with Salted Pepper,  is a traditional and popular dish in Sichuan. Almost every housewife in Sichuan can cook it. Nowadays, twice-cooked pork has been developed into a great variety according to different local flavors, but the way of cooking the pork is unchanged.
Twice-cooked pork is a Sichuan dish of fatty pork leg or belly, skin-on, that gets two very different cooking preparations. In the first stage, the belly is simmered just until it is cooked through. In stage two, you stir-fry the slices of belly until the meat is brown, the fat has rendered somewhat, and the layer of skin is a little crispy around the edges. Then you add to the wok what I think should be some kind of holy trinity of Chinese pastes: black bean, chili bean, and sweet bean.





Ingredients
 
Pork 200g
Garlic bolt 150g
Sichuan bean sauce 20g
Salt black bean 10g
Sweet paste 8g
Chicken powder 3g
Soy sauce 3g




Preparation: 
1. Bring 3/4 wok of water to a boil. Add in the whole pork butt to be boiled for about 3 minutes until 60% cooked, during which cooking wine, ginger and green onion sections can be added in to help to remove the fishy smell. Pick it out and put into a basin filled with cold water to be cooled for 1 minute. Remove it and cut into thin slices of 3-4 cm long and 1-2 cm wide. Put onto a plate. 2. Wash the garlic sprouts. Pat the white stems on chopping board with kitchen knife until you feel the garlic smell. Cut into sections of 3 cm long. Put into plate.
             





Method:
Bring a large pot of water to boil. Add the pork and simmer until it is just cooked through, about 25 minutes. Remove the pork from the water and let cool. (Water can be set aside for use in stock, or discarded.) Place the belly in the refrigerator for an hour or more to firm up the flesh.






When the meat is cool, slice it thinly so you have 1/4-inch thick rectangles of meat.
Heat oil or lard in wok over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add the slices of pork and stir-fry until the fat has rendered somewhat and the skin is brown and somewhat crisp, about 2 minutes. Push the pork to one side of the wok and add the chili bean paste. Stir-fry until the oil is red, then add the sweet bean paste and the black beans and stir-fry for a few seconds longer. Mix everything together and add the soy sauce and the sugar/
Add the leeks or ramps and stir-fry until they are just cooked, about 30 seconds.
Finally, twice cooked pork is complete. Turn off the heat, remove it out of the wok and put into a prepared fine porcelain plate. Serve with rice.

Server immediately.

Tips: Besides garlic sprouts, dry cowpeas, chili peppers, pickles, cabbage, garlic stems can also be used as the fixings to go with pork in this dish according to your favorite.