Yu Xiang Shredded Pork (Yu Xiang Rou Si)
The "fish-fragrant" sauce — no fish involved — turning pork, wood ear and peppers into a Sichuan legend.
The story
Yu xiang rou si is the pork version of Sichuan's famous fish-fragrant flavor: garlicky, sour, sweet, spicy, with crunchy wood ears and silky velveted pork. It is the dish Sichuanese order to judge a kitchen.
Ingredients (6 + pantry staples)
- Pork loin, shredded — 10 oz / 300 g
- Dried wood ear fungus — 1 oz / 30 g, soaked and shredded
- Bell pepper — 1, shredded
- Garlic — 4 cloves, minced
- Ginger — 1 tbsp, minced
- Doubanjiang (chili bean paste) — 1 tbsp
Pantry staples used (don't count toward the 6): sugar (2 tbsp), black vinegar (2 tbsp), soy sauce (1 tbsp), cornstarch (1.5 tbsp), cooking oil. Not stocked yet? See the pantry page.
Steps
- Velvet the pork with soy + cornstarch; rest 10 minutes. Mix the sauce: sugar, vinegar, soy, cornstarch, 1/4 cup water.
- Stir-fry pork in hot oil until just done; add doubanjiang, garlic, ginger until the oil turns red.
- Wood ears and pepper for 1 minute; sauce in (stir it!) — 30 seconds until glossy.
Swaps
The same sauce and method on eggplant (see our Yu Xiang Eggplant) is the vegetarian twin.
More 30-minute dishes
Chaoshan Daikon & Pork Soup (Chao Shan Qing Tang)
The soup this whole site was built around: a whole chunk of pork and a daikon, half an hour, then celery and salt. That is the recipe.
Steamed Fish with Ginger & Soy (Qing Zheng Yu)
The Cantonese gold standard of "let the fish be fish" — steam 10 minutes, smother in hot oil and soy.
Corn, Carrot & Pork Soup (Yu Mi Hu Luo Bo Tang)
The sweetest soup in the Chinese canon — corn does all the flavor work while you do nothing.