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AI-generated photograph: Thin curled slices of pork belly with golden edges, glossy red with chilli bean sauce, tossed with bright green and pale leek pieces, heaped high on a dark slate grey oval plate, seen from a three quarter angle

Home · Recipes · Huíguōròu, twice-cooked pork with leeks

Sichuan · Dinner

Huíguōròu, twice-cooked pork with leeks

pork belly · chilli bean paste · leeks

AI-generated photograph

Huíguōròu, back-in-the-wok pork, is the great home-style dish of Sichuan: pork belly simmered, cooled, sliced thin and fried until the slices curl, then tossed with chilli bean paste, sweet bean sauce and leeks. It is rich, salty and savoury with a gentle heat, and every Chengdu family makes it.

Contains: cereals containing gluten, soya and sulphur dioxide and sulphites, as written. Gluten is in the sweet bean sauce (made with wheat flour), the Pixian chilli bean paste (most contain wheat flour), the soy sauce (made with wheat) and the Shaoxing wine. Soya is in the fermented black beans, the soy sauce, the sweet bean sauce and often the chilli bean paste. Sulphites are in the Shaoxing wine. Hoisin sauce, if you swap it in, contains soya and often wheat and sesame, so check the label.

Ingredients

  • 500g piece of boneless pork belly, skin on
  • 1 thumb-sized piece fresh ginger (about 20g), sliced
  • 2 spring onions, halved
  • 2 leeks (about 400g), standing in for the garlic shoots (suàn miáo) used in Sichuan
  • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
  • 1 and a half tablespoons Pixian chilli bean paste (Píxiàn dòubànjiàng, a fermented broad bean and chilli paste)
  • 1 tablespoon sweet bean sauce (tiánmiànjiàng, a sweet fermented wheat paste) or hoisin sauce
  • 1 tablespoon fermented black beans (dòuchǐ, salted fermented soya beans), rinsed
  • 1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine (Chinese rice wine for cooking)
  • 1 teaspoon light soy sauce
  • 1 teaspoon caster sugar

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Let's cook

  1. Put the pork belly in a pan with the ginger and spring onions, cover with cold water and bring to the boil. Skim off the foam, then simmer gently for 25 minutes until a skewer slides into the thickest part easily and the juices run clear. The middle should reach 75C.
  2. Lift the pork out and leave it to cool for 20 minutes, then chill it for 10 minutes if you can. Firm, cool pork slices far more neatly.
  3. Meanwhile, trim the leeks, cut them in half lengthways and wash out any grit. Cut them on a slant into pieces about 4cm long, keeping the white and green parts apart.
  4. Slice the pork as thinly as you can, about 3mm, so each slice has skin, fat and lean.
  5. Heat the oil in a wok on a medium heat. Add the pork slices and fry, stirring, for 5 to 6 minutes until the fat runs and the slices curl up into little cups. Cooks in Chengdu call them lamp dish slices. Push the pork to one side and pour off all but 2 tablespoons of the fat.
  6. Add the chilli bean paste to the fat and stir for 1 minute until the oil turns red. Add the sweet bean sauce and black beans and stir for 30 seconds, then toss everything together with the pork.
  7. Add the Shaoxing wine, soy sauce and sugar, then the white parts of the leek. Stir fry for 2 minutes, add the green parts and stir fry for 1 to 2 minutes more, until they are bright and just tender. Serve straight away with rice.

Tips

  • The pork can be simmered a day ahead and kept whole in the fridge. Cold pork is even easier to slice thin.
  • Keep leftovers covered in the fridge for up to 2 days and reheat in a hot wok until piping hot.

Swaps

  • Closer to Chengdu: use 200g of Chinese garlic shoots (suàn miáo) or the green tops of spring garlic instead of leeks.
  • Leaner: use boneless pork shoulder steaks, simmered for 20 minutes, and fry them in 2 tablespoons of oil.

Our own recipe. The photograph is AI-generated.

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