HuiGuoRou is one of the most famous Sichuan dishes enjoyed by many.
I came from Sichuan and our family enjoy eating HuiGuoRou. As time goes, I had my own brand of HuiGuoRou (twice-cooked pork belly) now.
My brand HuiGuoRou uses less ingredients than the traditional Sichuan HuiGuoRou. But mine actually tastes better than the traditional Sichuan in the eyes of ABC (American Born Chinese). For example, my children’s friends who had HuiGuoRou in our home ordered the same dish in a Chinese restaurant and were surprised that the restaurant’s HuiGuoRou was not as delicious as the one I had cooked.
I used to buy pork belly with skin to cook HuiGuoRou, then I started to use the skinless pork belly found in Costco to cook HuiGuoRou which received positive feedback from my guests. Now I mainly use skinless pork belly to cook HuiGuoRou.
Recently, a friend of mine tried my HuiGuoRou and liked it. She said she would like to show her middle school students how to cook HuiGuoRou in her hands-on food education class. I was overjoyed to hear this and invited her to my home to show her how to cook HuiGuoRou step by step.
While cooking and talking with this friend, I realized that my simple way of cooking HuiGuoRou was filled with interesting information. No wonder scholars often stay in schools, doing research, giving lectures to students, and answering questions from students boost a scholar’s ability to more precisely extract essential knowledge.
The ingredients to cook HuiGuoRou are:
One piece of pork belly (about 250 grams)
Cooking wine (3 tablespoons)
Ginger (5 pieces, each the size of a penny)
Soy sauce (2 tablespoons)
Information about HuiGuoRou:
1. HuiGuo means twice-cooked. HuiGuoRou is a very common and famous dish in Sichuan.
2. Cooled already-cooked pork belly is easier to cut. Let boil-cooked pork belly be cooled completely in the refrigerator, then cut it into slices (1 inch x 2 inch size, thickness about 0.1 inch)
3. Cooking wine helps to get rid of the weird smell from pork, add it during boiling and stir-cooking of pork belly. After adding the cooking wine, don’t cover the pan, instead let the weird smell evaporate. The amount of cooking wine can be more but should not be less than the recipe suggests.
4. Ginger pieces release flavor slowly which allows the pork belly to absorb and form its own flavor gradually. Don’t use pre-minced ginger to cook HuiGuoRou.
5. If you use pork belly with skin, the pork skin must first be burned to get rid of the sweat smell accumulated in the skin pores. Otherwise, the pork belly may have a weird smell.
6. Non-stick pans generally will hold a constant temperature; the cooking structure I’m sharing here only applies to non-stick pans.
Cooking instructions:
1. One piece of pork belly, about 250 grams.
Add pork belly into the boiling water, make sure the pork belly is completely submerged into the boiling water.
Add some cooking wine and a chunk of ginger (not sliced).
Boil the pork belly for 25 -30 minutes,
2. Take the cooked pork belly out of the boiled water, wash it in cold water and then keep cooked pork belly in the refrigerator for about 2 hours until it is completely cooled.
Cut the cold pork belly into thin slices (1 inch x 2 inch, thickness about 0.1 inch).
3. Place a non-stick pan on the stove and set the heat to high.
Add half a tablespoon of vegetable oil to the non-stick pan, add the sliced pork belly, and stir the pork belly frequently.
4. When the fat part of pork belly become shiny, set the heat at medium.
Add 3 tablespoons of cooking wine, 5 pieces of ginger, and stir cook for 3 minutes.
5. Set the heat to low.
Add 2 tablespoons of soy sauce, stir it, and then cover the pan and simmer for 3 minutes,
6. Pour the cooked HuiGuoRou in a plate, serve it with steam cooked plain rice.
Episodes of My Brand HuiGuoRou
