Twice-cooked Pork

hui guo rou

回锅肉

Hui guo rou—literally, “back-in-the-pot meat”—is the most profoundly loved of all local dishes.
A ravishing combination of fragrant pork, intensely savory seasonings and sprightly vegetables,
it’s the focus of great nostalgia and often tied up with childhood memories. One elderly roast-
duck vendor in Chengdu told me that in pre-industrial days, when all pork came from free-
range pigs, a whole neighborhood would know if someone was cooking the dish, so captivating
was its aroma. The dish is said to have been eaten at meetings of Sichuan’s notorious secret
societies, before the communists wiped them out, and is still nicknamed “secret society meat”
(paoge rou) in some parts of western Sichuan.

Twice-cooked pork derives its name from the fact that the pork is first boiled and then stir-fried.
In the hot oil, the thin slices of meat curl into what chefs call “lamp-dish shapes” (dengzhanwo
xing), resembling the tiny oil-filled dishes used as lamps in pre-revolutionary China.

The main ingredient is a cut of pork rump known as “second-cut pork” (erdao rou), a boned-out
upper back leg with trimmed edges (the “second cut”)—a tidy square that is half fat, half lean.
This luxurious morsel, cooked, is sometimes laid on an altar for ancestral sacrifices, after which
it can be put to other uses: this, some say, is how twice-cooked pork came about.

Fatty pork is essential. If you can, use rump or leg with a good 1 inch (2–3cm) layer of fat; failing
that, belly meat is excellent. To make the slicing easier, start with a larger piece of pork than
you need and use the scraps for other dishes.

Ingredients

 1 1/2-inch piece (30g) ginger, unpeeled

 1 scallion, white part only
 3/4 lb (350g) fatty pork rump, leg or belly,
 in one piece, with skin
 3 1/4 oz (90g) Chinese green garlic (or baby leeks,
 red onions or green and/or red peppers)
 2 tbsp lard or cooking oil
 A pinch of salt
 1½ tbsp Sichuan chile bean paste
 1½ tsp sweet flour sauce
 2 tsp fermented black beans,
 rinsed and drained
 ¼ tsp dark soy sauce
Instructions

Lightly smack the ginger and scallion white with the flat of a cleaver blade or a rolling pin to
loosen them. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the pork and return to a boil. Add the
ginger and scallion white, turn the heat down and simmer until the pork is barely cooked: about
10–20 minutes, depending on the thickness of the piece. Remove from the water and set aside
for a few hours to cool completely; refrigerate until needed (the pork can be cooked
a day ahead).

When you are ready to make the dish, slice the pork as thinly as possible, making sure each
piece has skin, fat and lean meat. Cut the green garlic at a steep angle into long, thin “horse
ear” slices (baby leeks can be cut in the same way, onions or peppers into bite-sized slices).

Heat the lard or oil in a seasoned wok over medium heat. Add the pork and stir-fry, with a pinch
of salt, until the pieces have curled up and released some of their oils, and smell delicious. Tilt
the wok, push the pork up one side and add the chile bean paste to the oil that pools in the
base; stir-fry until it smells wonderful and has reddened the oil. Add the sweet flour sauce and
black beans and stir briefly, then tilt the wok back and mix everything together. Finally, add the
soy sauce and green garlic (or other vegetable) and stir-fry until just cooked.

Variation

The green shoots that sprout out of forgotten heads of garlic can be used instead of the leeks in
this dish.