I know this is pretty old but I hope you guys still see comments when they come in. I've had a pretty good twice cooked pork a couple of times. I did my best to recreate it tonight with the help of your recipe. Even though I had to use a skillet, my wife (who is not a fan of the spicy funky food I like) said "if they had that at a local restaurant, I would go there every week and order it". Success! I also made hot and sour soup and some veggie spring rolls, which came out great. Thank you both for the time and effort you've put into the channel. I'm in love with the recipes you've shared!
Hey, so a few notes: 1. Man, I felt really awkward explaining the traditions around food sacrifice in China. In the reddit post we'll be using Steph's own words there, should've done the same in the video. So really, huge apologies if I got anything wrong there - I think I kept things general enough, but neither of us are experts on the topic and you never know. 2. So right, big question - can you use pork belly? Sure, of course. We just used this cut because we're obsessive. I couldn't find any English language charts that differentiated between this and other parts of the ham, so Steph mustered up some of her artistic talents to produce this extremely detailed and anatomically correct illustration: i.imgur.com/lBycgwx.jpg 3. The texture that you're looking for is called 'shuangkou' in Mandarin. Super difficult word to translate. 'Firm'? 'Has a bite to it'? Think the texture of Western-style lunchmeats - *those* are shuangkou. They're firm but your teeth easily slice right through themin each bite. 4. One thing that we wanted to mention in the video but couldn't else we get too bogged down on the ingredients portion: the use of Tianmianjiang (sweet bean paste). Some recipes use it, but our friend from Sichuan insisted that the northern-style Tianminajiang has no place in an authentic Huiguorou and a quick-Baiduing seemed to agree. There's a Sichuan style Sweet Bean Paste called 'Tianjiang' that's used in some old school recipes though... it's one of those ingredients that can be kinda tough to source even here in China however. The northern-style's tasty but a bit more pungent. Totally up to you. 5. Similarly, lots of restaurants use chilis. Use them if you want things spicier, no one's forcing you otherwise :) But to paraphrase one of my buddies from Sichuan: "People seem to think we sit around eating Chongqing hotpot every day, we don’t. You can't eat that all the time. At home a normal meal usually isn’t really spicy". I'm sure there's other families that're different though, everyone's got their own heat preferences.
Hi! I love your chinese cooking videos. Inspired a student like me to cook lunch and dinner on my own. 1 question. Can we store the boiled pork in the fridge for later use? and roughly how long can we keep it in the fridge because i boiled/cooked a big chunk of pork.
As a chinese, I can tell how many hard works you put in making chinese food. All dishes you make are traditional and also with your own thought. Good job!
If you are in the US and you want the "traditional" piece of pork, ask for 'Fresh Ham piece' ( as opposed to "smoked"). If using pork belly, ask for a chunk of 'Fresh Side'.
My grandfather's from Gejiu (个旧), Yunnan, and the version he makes is pretty close to this. My grandmother's from Myanmar (or Burma) and she used to turn this into soup with some Burmese shrimp paste, potatoes, and some kaffir limes - weird stuff but good. I can eat either versions with like 5 bowls of rice. This shit is delicious.
Great video! I'll share my variation that I make from an old book: 1. Boil the meat in clear water for 20 minutes and let it cool and firm up. 2. Prepare the sauce: mix hot yellow bean paste with little dark soy sauce and rice wine and little sugar. 3. Stir fry one leek cutted in small diagonal pieces on low heat until soften then remove. 4. Turn the heat up , add garlic then add the cutted meat and stir fry. I gently press the meat to the bottom a few times to get that texture you mention. 5. Add the sauce and let it incorporate into the meat. Add the cooked leek and stir shortly until hot.
A good alternative way to roasting the pork skin is to do it on the wok. Just get the wok really hot and press the skin hard against the sides and rub around in a circular motion.
Haha totally. That's the way I (Chris) have done it, but Steph prefers the open flame because it's easier to ensure that the hair's burned off. She just called from the other room that "if you have pork with absolutely zero hair, sure, do the wok method!" We probably should've included that in the video but it's kinda tough to describe quickly without a visual :)
Another great looking one that once again easily conveys the technique -and- ingredients. I for one really appreciate the attention to detail. Thank you.
I made this tonight with some tofu I found at my local Chinese grocer, the packaging calls it wenzhou dried tofu. I sliced it thin and fried it off in the pan first before continuing with the recipe. I'm really curious how wenzhou dried tofu would usually be used though in China.
Are garlic shoots available yearly in Sichuan? In Korea they are only available once in winter and another time in spring, because outside that specific timeframe farmers dont sell the shoots and grow the garlic into bulbs. Maybe its a need-demand issue here. Anyways I had to make do with scallions(green onions) and peppers and it was still good, but I wish they were available year around.
0:21 Who can tell me anything about this double-knife, please? I have one and I thought it was for peeling mango/pineapple etc. I never would have thought to sink it into a roast!
Hi, thanks for posting all these wonderful recipes. I was wondering if you guys have a recipe for Cantonese clear (skin) dumplings? My grandma use to make the best ones but she never taught me how it was done. Thanks!
Do you mean something like this: www.google.com.hk/search?q=%E7%B2%89%E6%9E%9C&newwindow=1&safe=strict&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjUqICy6rncAhVFsFQKHTPPD3oQ_AUICigB&biw=1093&bih=470 ?
Steph - Chinese Cooking Demystified the way my grandma made it, it had pork, dried shrimp, and mushrooms...it's not the same skin as hargaw (sorry dont read or write Chinese) sye mye tee in Cantonese.
I think I can kinda guess what you're talking about, there's another common transparent dumpling kind of stuff in dim sum besides hargow, and I think that might be it. Is it from Teochew though?
If it smokes when there's nothing in the pan... there's probably something in the pan. Make sure it's thoroughly cleaned before heating as there may be residue from the last time it was used. If it only smokes when you add oil, make sure the oil you're using has a high smoke point. A good oil to use for stir frying is groundnut (peanut) oil, also rapeseed oil is good.
can you freeze the pork when it's already stir-fried or do you have to freeze the boiled pork and stir-fry it after thawing? And how long will the boiled/stir-fried pork last in the freezer before going bad?
That ceremony video looks like some footage from a Food Ranger video. The voiceover also sound like a less "pumped" Trevor James...as I missing something here? 😁
I make a Hong Kong version with a more sweet flavor. I stir fry the boiled pork (loin) with ginger and capsicum, add dobanjiang, hoisin, soy, sugar and a splash of liaojiu wine. I usually serve it with some boiled potatoes and lotus root stir fried with peas and peppers with five spice and steamed rice
I'd love to, but we're not a high budget production and dry sea cucumber is very expensive. So we'll need probably save up some money for that, lol. I do love the Shandong dish of braised sea cucumber with leek. Or do you mean fresh sea cucumber?
Thanks for your answer. No I don't mean fresh one, I bought mine in a Chinese market in Bangkok and they were dry, (they are still dry...waiting for a nice recipe !)
As this is already slightly out of topic, I'll use the opportunity to tag on a similar suggestion as I don't know where else to post it: Since you have access to old Chinese recipe books and knowledgeable people around you, would you consider researching how to make oyster sauce at home? That segment on homemade char siu sauce was amazing!
So this is in Chinese, but you should be able to get a general idea: th-cam.com/video/2jZ5qaH0tV0/w-d-xo.html Basically, you get a metric shit ton of oysters, boil them for 30 minutes remove the oysters, then reduce that liquid 5-6 hours til dark and thick. Never tried my hand making it at home, could be a fun experiment. I'm wondering what the yield would actually be like in a stockpot though.
Actually, that's a really cool idea for a video. Get oysters, show how to make oyster sauce, show how sun-dry the boiled oysters, show how to use both by making a simple braised dried oyster/dried shiitake mushroom/oyster sauce braise. Might be a bit ambitious (would probably need a whole weekend to film) but I think that'd be an interesting one!
It's not "necessary". If you don't like it, I'd suggest you to cut of the skin after you poach it, it's a lot easier to cut if off this way. Also, maybe keep a few slices with skin on and see which one you prefer. Personally I love that skin, lol.
If you don't mind me copying from the notes... :) "One thing that we wanted to mention in the video but couldn't else we get too bogged down on the ingredients portion: the use of Tianmianjiang (sweet bean paste). Some recipes use it, but our friend from Sichuan insisted that the northern-style Tianminajiang has no place in an authentic Huiguorou and a quick-Baiduing seemed to agree. There's a Sichuan style Sweet Bean Paste called 'Tianjiang' that's used in some old school recipes though... it's one of those ingredients that can be kinda tough to source even here in China however. The northern-style's tasty but a bit more pungent. Totally up to you. "
Oh nice, you live there now? Huiguorou's one of those things that's obviously spread around China, super-common homecooked dish. Although just out of curiosity, any part of your family come from Sichuan if you go back a bit? In my time there there's always seemed to be a bit of a Sichuan-Kunming connection. A good friend of mine grew up in Kunming but his whole Dad's side is from outside Chengdu.
Oh wow, I would love to go to Sichuan one day, my family is all Yunnanese, I grew up in Kunming till I was 4 then we moved to New Zealand, my Dad always tried to cook stuff like this at home when he had the time, I love this dish, thanks for the great recipe, I'll try to cook this myself.
So I think one of the limiting factors in the English language is that there's so few words that can be used to describe food texture in an appetizing way. There's 'tender', 'soft', 'crispy' and 'fluffy' and... that's about it. The texture here is 'shuangkou'. There's no English word for that that doesn't sound terrible, so the best I can do is give an example. When I think of Western food, I think of lunchmeats (ham, roast beef, etc.)... it's firm but you can easily bite through it. *That's* shuangkou. It takes some cooking for skin and fat to get to that texture.
Thanks for the explanation! :-) I am a chef, I know exactly what you mean, there are not enough words to describe food textures in neither english nor german language. Furthermore there are also some textures that just aren't seen as 'pleasant' in western food. Im thinking for example about the texture of ducks tongue, this combination of soft muscle and [insert texture description here] gristle. Or other example the japanese have the word mochimochi (もちもち) to describe sticky bouncy textures, something that is also not found in western food.
Hmm... so I generally can sort a good deal of Western food here, but on the docket when I swing home over CNY's usually (1) my Mom's lasagna (2) whipping up a nice Porterhouse and (3) grabbing some proper Mexican food. For when I come back it's a little tough to say because I spend most of my time here, but my Chinese comfort food's HK-style roast meat/chacaanteng fare.
As always, it's in the reddit link in the description box :) I'll copy it for ya: www.reddit.com/r/Cooking/comments/91gwba/recipe_twice_cooked_pork_sichuan_huiguorou_%E5%9B%9E%E9%94%85%E8%82%89/
We got Guobaorou which's one kind of sweet and sour pork here: th-cam.com/video/jJhMLyA9WTk/w-d-xo.html We'll end up doing the 'tangcu liji' (much closer to the American takeout style) one of these days but I (1) wanted to leave a bit more time in between the two sweet and sour porks and (2) gotta do a bit more research, I only know the most modern method of doing it that includes a bit of ketchup in the mix.
I already tried it but my family wants the red sauce of the Sweet and sour pork. I always try it but its not the same. And the red of the sauce its not the same
Twice Cooked Pork come from the old tradition that when the ancient Chinese worship their ancesters, They provide some figurative food instead of the real dishes, So they boiled the pork in just few minutes to make sure that the pork just looks like the cooked dishes rather than the raw pork, After that they bring that pork home and cook it again, So that is the "twice" comes from. Based on that theory, The pork should not been cooked over 30 mins.
The mediocre curling was actually due to the cut, we used houtui because our market was out of erdaorou that day. If you used erdaorou you'll get sexier curling, promise.
Anything thinner than 2mm will end up dry, period. Also, the curling has way more to do with the actual pork texture and the cut of the meat. I do not think that "much thinner" is the key.
Depends who you ask, obviously. A couple close friends of ours are from Sichuan, and they'll often talk about how they feel it's a misconception that Sichuanese food is melt-your-mouth-hot. In my personal experience, I feel Sichuanese food runs a nice gamut from "not spicy" to "Chongqing hotpot". But you'll also find people from Sichuan that view spiciness as a point of pride, and would likely... heavily disagree with us. In my view, of the three really spicy cuisines in China (Guizhou, Hunan, Sichuan), I'd rank Guizhou as the spiciest, followed by Hunan, and then Sichuan. That said, there's certainly some dishes in Sichuan cuisine that absolutely reach the uppermost pleasurable limit of the Scoville scale.
@@kulkulan223 Food can taste good without a lot of ingredients... I don't understand why you're ascribing a 'purpose' and acting exclusionary to this one specific one?
Steph - Chinese Cooking Demystified: Definitely not - there are enough natural flavour enhancers in the Doubanjiang and the Douchi, which makes the addition of MSG unnecessary.
ふじわら正彦 Absolutely not and it’s something I don’t need to deal with. If you like synthetic MSG, fine - feel free to use it. I don‘t want it and there is definitely no need to use synthetic MSG, since the ingredients of most Chinese recipes contain enough natural flavour enhancers, which makes the use of additional synthetic MSG superfluous. Chinese cooking existed before synthetic MSG was invented - so according to your logic that‘s not Chinese cooking?
ふじわら正彦 I am not dictating - I am only saying that this dish does not need additional MSG and believe me, I have had this dish several times prepared without synthetic MSG and it tasted wonderful. Spicy, savory and full of umami...
+Leif Dehio To us, monosodium glutamate isn't any more unnatural than sodium chloride (i.e. table salt) or sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). However, like salt or vinegar, MSG *is* a strong flavor that can be easily overdone if not careful - in high amounts of MSG can obviously give that sort of monotonous 'processed food' flavor. I'd imagine most of (yours' and others') culinary objections to MSG stem from experiences eating food (1) made with too much MSG or (2) made with MSG when it had clashing flavors. MSG has a very sharp 'raw' sort of glutamate flavor - it absolutely should stay in the background. When we use MSG in these videos, by and large it's a tiny sprinkle. When we say tiny sprinkle, we meant it - like, literally significantly less than 1/8 tsp, ~10-15 crystals. If we fed this dish to you, you'd probably never be able to guess that it has MSG in it, as it's extremely subtle. As such, you don't need to use it if you don't like it. There's certain Sichuanese dishes that practically need it (e.g. stuff in the Hongyou flavor profile), and in that case you'll know by us saying something like "a heavily recommended 1/4 tsp of..."
Gross: 1. (in) total; 2. extremely unpleasant; 3.extremely fat or large and ugly; 4. (especially in law) unacceptable because clearly wrong. I'm wondering which one do you mean.
I know this is pretty old but I hope you guys still see comments when they come in. I've had a pretty good twice cooked pork a couple of times. I did my best to recreate it tonight with the help of your recipe. Even though I had to use a skillet, my wife (who is not a fan of the spicy funky food I like) said "if they had that at a local restaurant, I would go there every week and order it". Success! I also made hot and sour soup and some veggie spring rolls, which came out great.
Thank you both for the time and effort you've put into the channel. I'm in love with the recipes you've shared!
Hey, so a few notes:
1. Man, I felt really awkward explaining the traditions around food sacrifice in China. In the reddit post we'll be using Steph's own words there, should've done the same in the video. So really, huge apologies if I got anything wrong there - I think I kept things general enough, but neither of us are experts on the topic and you never know.
2. So right, big question - can you use pork belly? Sure, of course. We just used this cut because we're obsessive. I couldn't find any English language charts that differentiated between this and other parts of the ham, so Steph mustered up some of her artistic talents to produce this extremely detailed and anatomically correct illustration: i.imgur.com/lBycgwx.jpg
3. The texture that you're looking for is called 'shuangkou' in Mandarin. Super difficult word to translate. 'Firm'? 'Has a bite to it'? Think the texture of Western-style lunchmeats - *those* are shuangkou. They're firm but your teeth easily slice right through themin each bite.
4. One thing that we wanted to mention in the video but couldn't else we get too bogged down on the ingredients portion: the use of Tianmianjiang (sweet bean paste). Some recipes use it, but our friend from Sichuan insisted that the northern-style Tianminajiang has no place in an authentic Huiguorou and a quick-Baiduing seemed to agree. There's a Sichuan style Sweet Bean Paste called 'Tianjiang' that's used in some old school recipes though... it's one of those ingredients that can be kinda tough to source even here in China however. The northern-style's tasty but a bit more pungent. Totally up to you.
5. Similarly, lots of restaurants use chilis. Use them if you want things spicier, no one's forcing you otherwise :) But to paraphrase one of my buddies from Sichuan: "People seem to think we sit around eating Chongqing hotpot every day, we don’t. You can't eat that all the time. At home a normal meal usually isn’t really spicy". I'm sure there's other families that're different though, everyone's got their own heat preferences.
in Italian shuanggkoi would be al dente ....im guessing?
The pig illustration is killer! It's what pork butt should be but isn't.
Could totally be wrong here, but doesn't al dente usually refer to pasta?
Chinese Cooking Demystified yes.
al dente literally means "to the tooth". And refers to the texture of pasta when cooked .
Hi! I love your chinese cooking videos. Inspired a student like me to cook lunch and dinner on my own. 1 question. Can we store the boiled pork in the fridge for later use? and roughly how long can we keep it in the fridge because i boiled/cooked a big chunk of pork.
As a chinese, I can tell how many hard works you put in making chinese food. All dishes you make are traditional and also with your own thought. Good job!
Man oh man I just discovered this channel and already my wok game increased tenfold. Can't wait to try more and more recipes!
If you are in the US and you want the "traditional" piece of pork, ask for 'Fresh Ham piece' ( as opposed to "smoked"). If using pork belly, ask for a chunk of 'Fresh Side'.
What? Are you from some weird small town? Anyone working at the meat counter knows what pork belly is
My grandfather's from Gejiu (个旧), Yunnan, and the version he makes is pretty close to this. My grandmother's from Myanmar (or Burma) and she used to turn this into soup with some Burmese shrimp paste, potatoes, and some kaffir limes - weird stuff but good. I can eat either versions with like 5 bowls of rice. This shit is delicious.
Oh that Myanmar style sounds interesting as hell. What's the general approach... boil, slice, fry then add water?
I’m also interested in the soup version! Can’t wait to hear it.
Ohhhh sounds good
Guess the soup recipe remained a secret forever
Great video! I'll share my variation that I make from an old book:
1. Boil the meat in clear water for 20 minutes and let it cool and firm up.
2. Prepare the sauce: mix hot yellow bean paste with little dark soy sauce and rice wine and little sugar.
3. Stir fry one leek cutted in small diagonal pieces on low heat until soften then remove.
4. Turn the heat up , add garlic then add the cutted meat and stir fry. I gently press the meat to the bottom a few times to get that texture you mention.
5. Add the sauce and let it incorporate into the meat. Add the cooked leek and stir shortly until hot.
A good alternative way to roasting the pork skin is to do it on the wok. Just get the wok really hot and press the skin hard against the sides and rub around in a circular motion.
Haha totally. That's the way I (Chris) have done it, but Steph prefers the open flame because it's easier to ensure that the hair's burned off.
She just called from the other room that "if you have pork with absolutely zero hair, sure, do the wok method!" We probably should've included that in the video but it's kinda tough to describe quickly without a visual :)
Another great looking one that once again easily conveys the technique -and- ingredients. I for one really appreciate the attention to detail. Thank you.
I made this tonight with some tofu I found at my local Chinese grocer, the packaging calls it wenzhou dried tofu. I sliced it thin and fried it off in the pan first before continuing with the recipe. I'm really curious how wenzhou dried tofu would usually be used though in China.
This is really interesting! The twice-cooked method is sometimes used for pork ribs and is my personal favorite way to make them.
Are garlic shoots available yearly in Sichuan? In Korea they are only available once in winter and another time in spring, because outside that specific timeframe farmers dont sell the shoots and grow the garlic into bulbs. Maybe its a need-demand issue here. Anyways I had to make do with scallions(green onions) and peppers and it was still good, but I wish they were available year around.
Made this today! Thank you so much! It was perfect. Added a bit more chili because why not and made your string beans. Thank you
0:21 Who can tell me anything about this double-knife, please? I have one and I thought it was for peeling mango/pineapple etc. I never would have thought to sink it into a roast!
nice one... I feel blessed I found your channel few months ago!
Cheers~ :)
One of my favorite dishes of any cuisine
Can the cooking liquid be used for anything? Is there any reason not to use it as a soup stock? Weird flavors from the pork or?
Hey. I wouldn’t advice you reserve the “stock”. The reason for using the aromatics is to remove that overly “porky” taste.
can i use laogangma instead of the fermented black beans`?
Hi, thanks for posting all these wonderful recipes. I was wondering if you guys have a recipe for Cantonese clear (skin) dumplings? My grandma use to make the best ones but she never taught me how it was done. Thanks!
Do you mean something like this: www.google.com.hk/search?q=%E7%B2%89%E6%9E%9C&newwindow=1&safe=strict&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjUqICy6rncAhVFsFQKHTPPD3oQ_AUICigB&biw=1093&bih=470 ?
Do you mean 粉果? The clear one with some chives, taro and pork in it? Or do you mean hargow, where there's shrimp in it.
Steph - Chinese Cooking Demystified the way my grandma made it, it had pork, dried shrimp, and mushrooms...it's not the same skin as hargaw (sorry dont read or write Chinese) sye mye tee in Cantonese.
I think I can kinda guess what you're talking about, there's another common transparent dumpling kind of stuff in dim sum besides hargow, and I think that might be it. Is it from Teochew though?
Steph - Chinese Cooking Demystified No, Toi San...
Why is it better to let rest or fan to dry? Doesn't it come from boiling water anyway so wouldn't quick ice water bath then pat dry be most efficient?
I had the best dandan noodles 2 weeks ago at a new Chinese restaurant I found. The chef even brought it out and it was a cheap price and authentic.
Nice, which restaurant? If you have a pic we might be able to give some pointers on how to recreate that style.
Hey guys. Love the video. I have a question for you: why does my wok smoke when heating it up?
What kind of oil are you using? Google cooking oil smoke points and make sure you're using one that's at least 450, like peanut oil
If it smokes when there's nothing in the pan... there's probably something in the pan. Make sure it's thoroughly cleaned before heating as there may be residue from the last time it was used. If it only smokes when you add oil, make sure the oil you're using has a high smoke point. A good oil to use for stir frying is groundnut (peanut) oil, also rapeseed oil is good.
It's either because you're heating a non-sticky pan dry or heating oil for too long.
generally
My partner is allergic to broad beans. Would something like LGM and a bit of miso approximate the flavor of the doubanjian?
did he say toss in the green garlic? its not green onion?
can you freeze the pork when it's already stir-fried or do you have to freeze the boiled pork and stir-fry it after thawing? And how long will the boiled/stir-fried pork last in the freezer before going bad?
Here in the states, whenever I order twice/double cooked pork, its always with cabbage
Guys you are great! Thanks for this recipe.
That ceremony video looks like some footage from a Food Ranger video. The voiceover also sound like a less "pumped" Trevor James...as I missing something here? 😁
lol yep it's from Food Ranger. Trevor's a real nice guy and gave us permission to cut in any of his footage into our recipe videos.
My favorite food when I lived in Chengdu (but also cold noodle dishes too).
When using a packet spice mix (santapai), do I use the mix in the boiling stage or stir fry stage?
I make a Hong Kong version with a more sweet flavor. I stir fry the boiled pork (loin) with ginger and capsicum, add dobanjiang, hoisin, soy, sugar and a splash of liaojiu wine. I usually serve it with some boiled potatoes and lotus root stir fried with peas and peppers with five spice and steamed rice
Might have already been asked, but is the poaching liquid useful for anything after it's done its job cooking the pork?
4:11 "... there's only so much spicy food one can eat" now this I consider a suspicious statement o.O
Amazing Chinese recipes this is my favourite when I had in restaurant in Nepal . 👌🏻👌🏻
What is the word he uses in his videos whenever he preheats his wok? I can’t quite tell what’s he saying...
"Longyau". It's Cantonese, the Mandarin term for it is "Huaguo"
Thank you both again !!!
Delicious !!!
Great channel with great explanations !!! Could you please make a video for sea cucumber recipe please ? 🙏🏼
I'd love to, but we're not a high budget production and dry sea cucumber is very expensive. So we'll need probably save up some money for that, lol. I do love the Shandong dish of braised sea cucumber with leek. Or do you mean fresh sea cucumber?
Thanks for your answer. No I don't mean fresh one, I bought mine in a Chinese market in Bangkok and they were dry, (they are still dry...waiting for a nice recipe !)
Have you a video on 地三鲜？A great northeastern Chinese dish. Thanks!
Not yet, on the list!
As this is already slightly out of topic, I'll use the opportunity to tag on a similar suggestion as I don't know where else to post it: Since you have access to old Chinese recipe books and knowledgeable people around you, would you consider researching how to make oyster sauce at home? That segment on homemade char siu sauce was amazing!
So this is in Chinese, but you should be able to get a general idea: th-cam.com/video/2jZ5qaH0tV0/w-d-xo.html
Basically, you get a metric shit ton of oysters, boil them for 30 minutes remove the oysters, then reduce that liquid 5-6 hours til dark and thick. Never tried my hand making it at home, could be a fun experiment. I'm wondering what the yield would actually be like in a stockpot though.
Actually, that's a really cool idea for a video. Get oysters, show how to make oyster sauce, show how sun-dry the boiled oysters, show how to use both by making a simple braised dried oyster/dried shiitake mushroom/oyster sauce braise. Might be a bit ambitious (would probably need a whole weekend to film) but I think that'd be an interesting one!
Looks good but I'm a bit turned off by the skin. Is the skin necessary?
It's not "necessary". If you don't like it, I'd suggest you to cut of the skin after you poach it, it's a lot easier to cut if off this way. Also, maybe keep a few slices with skin on and see which one you prefer. Personally I love that skin, lol.
I've seen some recipes use sweet bean paste as well. Is that common?
If you don't mind me copying from the notes... :)
"One thing that we wanted to mention in the video but couldn't else we get too bogged down on the ingredients portion: the use of Tianmianjiang (sweet bean paste). Some recipes use it, but our friend from Sichuan insisted that the northern-style Tianminajiang has no place in an authentic Huiguorou and a quick-Baiduing seemed to agree. There's a Sichuan style Sweet Bean Paste called 'Tianjiang' that's used in some old school recipes though... it's one of those ingredients that can be kinda tough to source even here in China however. The northern-style's tasty but a bit more pungent. Totally up to you. "
I really must remember to read check the notes ; ) Thanks!
My Dad used to make this all the time for me, I'm from Kunming Yunnan.
Oh nice, you live there now?
Huiguorou's one of those things that's obviously spread around China, super-common homecooked dish. Although just out of curiosity, any part of your family come from Sichuan if you go back a bit? In my time there there's always seemed to be a bit of a Sichuan-Kunming connection. A good friend of mine grew up in Kunming but his whole Dad's side is from outside Chengdu.
Oh wow, I would love to go to Sichuan one day, my family is all Yunnanese, I grew up in Kunming till I was 4 then we moved to New Zealand, my Dad always tried to cook stuff like this at home when he had the time, I love this dish, thanks for the great recipe, I'll try to cook this myself.
One of my favorite dishes
Green garlic 3:50
Lovely!! I'm from Sichuan and I have a Hui Guo Rou recipe on my channel as well!! :)
Wouldn’t the skin end tough after such a short poaching and quick fry?
Actually no, because it's thinly sliced. The skin adds an interesting texture.
Steph - Chinese Cooking Demystified mmh, would’ve to try it that way then
Hm doesn‘t the meat get dry and tough this way? 🤔
But looks delicious, will deffinitely try it!
So I think one of the limiting factors in the English language is that there's so few words that can be used to describe food texture in an appetizing way. There's 'tender', 'soft', 'crispy' and 'fluffy' and... that's about it.
The texture here is 'shuangkou'. There's no English word for that that doesn't sound terrible, so the best I can do is give an example. When I think of Western food, I think of lunchmeats (ham, roast beef, etc.)... it's firm but you can easily bite through it. *That's* shuangkou.
It takes some cooking for skin and fat to get to that texture.
Thanks for the explanation! :-) I am a chef, I know exactly what you mean, there are not enough words to describe food textures in neither english nor german language. Furthermore there are also some textures that just aren't seen as 'pleasant' in western food. Im thinking for example about the texture of ducks tongue, this combination of soft muscle and [insert texture description here] gristle. Or other example the japanese have the word mochimochi (もちもち) to describe sticky bouncy textures, something that is also not found in western food.
Question for Chris: When you're in the US, what's your favorite thing to eat? And what do you have to have when you get back to China?
Hmm... so I generally can sort a good deal of Western food here, but on the docket when I swing home over CNY's usually (1) my Mom's lasagna (2) whipping up a nice Porterhouse and (3) grabbing some proper Mexican food.
For when I come back it's a little tough to say because I spend most of my time here, but my Chinese comfort food's HK-style roast meat/chacaanteng fare.
Woot! 4th!!! Great channel guys
Sichuan native approved!
Pork goes well with onion pepper honey and shrimp.
List of seasoning please
As always, it's in the reddit link in the description box :) I'll copy it for ya: www.reddit.com/r/Cooking/comments/91gwba/recipe_twice_cooked_pork_sichuan_huiguorou_%E5%9B%9E%E9%94%85%E8%82%89/
thank you
Please do a video using XO sauce if you haven't already
Need English Caption ! Thank You.
Can you cook Sweet and sour pork? Restaurant style
We got Guobaorou which's one kind of sweet and sour pork here: th-cam.com/video/jJhMLyA9WTk/w-d-xo.html We'll end up doing the 'tangcu liji' (much closer to the American takeout style) one of these days but I (1) wanted to leave a bit more time in between the two sweet and sour porks and (2) gotta do a bit more research, I only know the most modern method of doing it that includes a bit of ketchup in the mix.
I already tried it but my family wants the red sauce of the Sweet and sour pork. I always try it but its not the same. And the red of the sauce its not the same
Pork goes well with shrimp onion and pepper what else and honey.
Twice Cooked Pork come from the old tradition that when the ancient Chinese worship their ancesters, They provide some figurative food instead of the real dishes, So they boiled the pork in just few minutes to make sure that the pork just looks like the cooked dishes rather than the raw pork, After that they bring that pork home and cook it again, So that is the "twice" comes from. Based on that theory, The pork should not been cooked over 30 mins.
The meat has to be sliced much thinner, so the slices are able to curl and form a shape of a dish under immediate high heat.
The mediocre curling was actually due to the cut, we used houtui because our market was out of erdaorou that day. If you used erdaorou you'll get sexier curling, promise.
You need to cut it thinner, period.
Anything thinner than 2mm will end up dry, period. Also, the curling has way more to do with the actual pork texture and the cut of the meat. I do not think that "much thinner" is the key.
ok
Looks yummy.
Xie xie.
I thought folks in sichuan don't really have a limit for spicy food. XD
Depends who you ask, obviously. A couple close friends of ours are from Sichuan, and they'll often talk about how they feel it's a misconception that Sichuanese food is melt-your-mouth-hot. In my personal experience, I feel Sichuanese food runs a nice gamut from "not spicy" to "Chongqing hotpot".
But you'll also find people from Sichuan that view spiciness as a point of pride, and would likely... heavily disagree with us.
In my view, of the three really spicy cuisines in China (Guizhou, Hunan, Sichuan), I'd rank Guizhou as the spiciest, followed by Hunan, and then Sichuan. That said, there's certainly some dishes in Sichuan cuisine that absolutely reach the uppermost pleasurable limit of the Scoville scale.
"...There is only so much spicy food one can eat." said no Sichuanese ever.
I would make hotter schezuan with heat is not schezuan, my view
You sound like Chris Hansen.
Great recipe, but the apron is wrinkly dinky. #ironit
you need onion and pepper!!!!!!!!!!!!
Totally lost me there with the MSG...
Why?
48956l why do you need msg if it tastes good already?
Kulkulan the same reason you’d use any other ingredient? Why are you singling out MSG?
48956l Because its only purpose is to add umami to food which tastes bland. Food can taste good without it too.
@@kulkulan223 Food can taste good without a lot of ingredients... I don't understand why you're ascribing a 'purpose' and acting exclusionary to this one specific one?
Omit the MSG and you‘re fine...
It's spicy food after all, MSG is a quite important complement to the whole flavor.
Steph - Chinese Cooking Demystified: Definitely not - there are enough natural flavour enhancers in the Doubanjiang and the Douchi, which makes the addition of MSG unnecessary.
ふじわら正彦 Absolutely not and it’s something I don’t need to deal with. If you like synthetic MSG, fine - feel free to use it. I don‘t want it and there is definitely no need to use synthetic MSG, since the ingredients of most Chinese recipes contain enough natural flavour enhancers, which makes the use of additional synthetic MSG superfluous. Chinese cooking existed before synthetic MSG was invented - so according to your logic that‘s not Chinese cooking?
ふじわら正彦 I am not dictating - I am only saying that this dish does not need additional MSG and believe me, I have had this dish several times prepared without synthetic MSG and it tasted wonderful. Spicy, savory and full of umami...
+Leif Dehio To us, monosodium glutamate isn't any more unnatural than sodium chloride (i.e. table salt) or sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). However, like salt or vinegar, MSG *is* a strong flavor that can be easily overdone if not careful - in high amounts of MSG can obviously give that sort of monotonous 'processed food' flavor.
I'd imagine most of (yours' and others') culinary objections to MSG stem from experiences eating food (1) made with too much MSG or (2) made with MSG when it had clashing flavors. MSG has a very sharp 'raw' sort of glutamate flavor - it absolutely should stay in the background.
When we use MSG in these videos, by and large it's a tiny sprinkle. When we say tiny sprinkle, we meant it - like, literally significantly less than 1/8 tsp, ~10-15 crystals. If we fed this dish to you, you'd probably never be able to guess that it has MSG in it, as it's extremely subtle.
As such, you don't need to use it if you don't like it. There's certain Sichuanese dishes that practically need it (e.g. stuff in the Hongyou flavor profile), and in that case you'll know by us saying something like "a heavily recommended 1/4 tsp of..."
Gross
Gross: 1. (in) total; 2. extremely unpleasant; 3.extremely fat or large and ugly; 4. (especially in law) unacceptable because clearly wrong. I'm wondering which one do you mean.
Thank you! It's a delicious dish and a guilty pleasure of mine.