Twice-Cooked Pork
Belly pork simmered, sliced, then fried until the edges curl and crisp, in a deep chili-bean sauce with leeks. The dish that made doubanjiang famous.
Huíguōròu — literally “return to the pot meat” — is one of the defining dishes of Sichuan home cooking, and its name is its recipe. Pork belly is simmered whole, cooled, sliced, and then returned to a hot wok to fry.
The two cookings serve different purposes. The simmer renders some fat and makes the belly firm enough to slice thin. The fry crisps the edges and renders more fat, which becomes the cooking medium for the sauce. That is why you add the doubanjiang directly to the pork fat rather than to fresh oil — the paste blooms in fat that is already carrying pork flavor.
The one thing worth planning around is the chilling step. Warm pork belly cannot be sliced thin; it compresses and tears. Simmer it the night before, refrigerate, and the actual cooking takes ten minutes.
Instructions
- 1
Put the pork belly in a pot with the ginger, scallions, 1 tablespoon of the Shaoxing wine, and water to cover. Simmer 25 minutes until a chopstick passes through with slight resistance.
- 2
Lift the pork out and chill it, at least 1 hour and ideally overnight. Cold firm belly slices cleanly; warm belly tears.
- 3
Slice as thin as you can manage, about 1/8 inch, keeping the skin, fat, and meat attached in each piece.
- 4
Heat the oil in a wok over medium-high. Add the pork in one layer and fry 3 to 4 minutes, until the slices curl at the edges and some fat renders out. This is the second cooking and where the texture comes from.
- 5
Push the pork aside. Add the doubanjiang to the rendered fat and fry 30 seconds until the oil turns red, then the black beans, sweet bean sauce, and garlic for 20 seconds.
- 6
Add the remaining Shaoxing wine, soy sauce, and sugar. Toss everything together.
- 7
Add the leeks and stir-fry 90 seconds, until they soften slightly but keep their bite. Serve immediately with rice.
Cook’s Notes
- Chill the belly before slicing. This is the step that decides whether you get clean thin slices or ragged chunks, and there is no way around it.
- Fry the pork in its own rendered fat, not in fresh oil. That fat is the flavor base for the entire sauce.
- The slices should curl into little cups, which Sichuan cooks call lamp-shade pork. That curl means the fat has rendered and the edges have crisped.
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