Twice-cooked pork with glistening caramelised pork belly, spring onions and red chillies in a dark fermented bean sauce on a plate

Qing Dynasty · China

Twice-Cooked Pork (Yuan Mei style)

Name: Twice-Cooked Pork (Yuan Mei style)
Total time: 60 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: China
Ingredients: 500g pork belly, whole; 3 tbsp doubanjiang (fermented broad bean paste); 1 tbsp sweet bean sauce; 3 spring onions, cut in batons; 2 fresh red chillies, sliced; 1 tbsp Shaoxing wine; 2 tsp sugar; 3 slices ginger; 2 tbsp oil

From Suiyuan Shidan 隨園食單 · Yuan Mei · 1792

Verified from original source

The classic Sichuan-style twice-cooked pork — belly poached then stir-fried with fermented bean paste. Yuan Mei's Qing-era version.

Historical note: Yuan Mei's cookbook is famous for its philosophy: 'A cook's greatest sin is doing too much.' This dish exemplifies it.

History

Twice-cooked pork (huí guō ròu 回鍋肉) appears in Yuan Mei's Suiyuan Shidan (1792), an influential Qing dynasty culinary work documenting refined Jiangnan cuisine. Yuan Mei, a scholar-poet and gourmand, recorded recipes from his household cook and travels. His version involves boiling pork belly until tender, then slicing and stir-frying with seasonings—a technique preserving moisture while achieving wok-seared flavour. Though Yuan's refined approach differed from rustic origins, twice-cooking became fundamental to Chinese culinary technique. The dish evolved regionally; Sichuan's spicy version with doubanjiang and leeks became most famous internationally. Yuan's text influenced Chinese gastronomic literature and remains studied for understanding 18th-century elite food culture.

Sources

Yuan Mei, Suiyuan Shidan (隨園食單), 1792
H.T. Huang, Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 6: Biology and Biological Technology, Part 5: Fermentations and Food Science, 2000
E.N. Anderson, The Food of China, 1988
Hsiang Ju Lin and Tsuifeng Lin, translators, Chinese Gastronomy by Hsiang Ju Lin and Tsuifeng Lin, 1969
Sean J.S. Chen, translator, Recipes from the Garden of Contentment: Yuan Mei's Manual of Gastronomy, 2018

Serves

Prep

15m

Cook

45m

Difficulty

Medium

Ingredients

· 500g pork belly, whole
· 3 tbsp doubanjiang (fermented broad bean paste)
· 1 tbsp sweet bean sauce
· 3 spring onions, cut in batons
· 2 fresh red chillies, sliced
· 1 tbsp Shaoxing wine
· 2 tsp sugar
· 3 slices ginger
· 2 tbsp oil

Method

1
Simmer pork belly whole in water with ginger for 25 minutes. Cool.
2
Slice cold pork very thinly — 3mm slabs.
3
Heat oil in wok on high. Add pork slices, fry until edges curl.
4
Push pork to one side. Add doubanjiang and sweet bean sauce; sizzle 30 seconds.
5
Toss everything with sugar, wine, spring onions and chillies.
6
Serve over rice.

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