Twice-Cooked Pork Sichuan - Hui Guo Rou

Recipe for twice-cooked pork Sichuan

Twice cooked pork belly (Hui Guo Rou) is one of the most famous and popular dishes of Sichuan cuisine. There is an interesting saying that if you do not eat twice cooked pork, then you have never been to Sichuan. You eat the dish either with steamed rice or a type of Baked Chinese bread.

In the region of Sichuan in China, you do not use soy sauce, but the sweet bean paste Doubanjiang. However, sweet bean paste is quite hard to find outside China. You can also use a good Chinese soy sauce instead.

It is interesting that the thickness of the pork belly slices influences the taste: thicker slices of about 0.3-0.4 cm will be slightly softer than 0.1 cm to 0.2 cm thick slices.

Ingredients for 4 persons

300g pork belly
1 leek with greens
4-5 Sichuan peppercorn
1 small bunch garlic sprout (3-4 ones), end removed and cut into pieces
2 long red chili peppers
1 teaspoon cooking oil
3 cm scallion stalk, cut into small pieces
1 cm ginger, sliced
2 garlic cloves, sliced
1 tblsp broad bean paste: doubanjiang
2 tsp dou-chi: fermented black beans
1 to 2 tsp light soy sauce

Instructions

Put the pork belly in a large pot with enough cold water to cover. Cut the leek with green into pieces of about 3 cm and add them together with Sichuan peppercorns. Bring to the boil and simmer for 30 minutes. If you are cooking a larger amount, cut the pork belly into sections about 15 cm long*.
Cut the garlic green into pieces about 2 cm long. Remove the seeds and chop the chilli peppers, too.

Heat up around 1 teaspoon of oil in a wok, cut the pork belly into 0.4 cm thick slices and fry for approx. 1-2 minutes* until the slices are slightly browned.
Remove and fry in the remaining frying oil ginger, garlic and scallion until aroma. Place doubanjiang and dou-chi, fry for another half minute. Return pork slices and give a big stir fry to combine well.
Add red pepper, fry for another half minutes. Lastly, place garlic and light soy sauce.

Combine well and serve immediately with steamed rice.

*If the pork belly is fatty, fry for a longer time to reduce the oil. However if the pork belly is with lots of lean meat, do not over-fry it. Otherwise, the slices will dry out.

Image source: Fotolia - # 51708931 - Twice-cooked pork © xiefei