One of my father’s signature dishes is onion fried pork. It’s soft and sweet with a story to tell.
2020’s quarantine provided me opportunities to explore and expand on my father’s signature dish, onion fried meat, far away from my hometown Zigong.
In early Spring, while COVID-19 was very scary and full of unknowns, one of my daughter’s friends who does not eat pork visited us on short notice and I invited her to have dinner with us. In a hurry, I cooked a onion and tomato fried egg dish for her. She liked it.
From then on, I often cooked the onion and tomato fried egg when that young girl has dinner with us. Because I enjoy cooking guests’ favorite dishes very much.
After seeing I repeatedly present the same onion and tomato fried egg dish, my daughter commented: ”Mommy, onion and tomato fried egg doesn’t have meat, it’s probably short of protein.”
Because the guest doesn’t eat pork, I added fried ground beef to the onion and tomato fried egg dish. This new onion dish eliminated my daughter’s concerns also fit the guest’s taste.
Bright colored onion and tomato with fried egg and ground beef dish became one of my signature dishes in 2020. Quite a surprising achievement during stay-at-home quarantine time.
The plain and boring life of staying at home promoted my signature dish HuiGuoRou to more guests. In the meantime, I got lot of feedback about my HuiGuoRou: such as it is very greasy. In response, I remembered my father’s signature dish of onion fried pork and I started to add onions to HuiGuoRou for my guests, because onion absorbs oil well. Then I was told: “The onion inside HuiGuoRou is so delicious.” (soft and sweat onion filled with the special flavor of HuiGuoRou).
In 2020, I often cooked onions with meat. The high frequency let me realize that my cutting of the onions into half rings is different from the traditional Chinese cutting method, because I happened to see the traditional onion cutting style from my classmate’s photos.
Because of my father’s signature dish of onion fried pork, I am very good at making onion fried HuiGuoRou, a family dish that has been enhanced across the world. I was happy to see that I adapted and mastered a family dish unexpectedly in 2020’s long quarantine period.
I felt the core of family dishes is using common supplies to cook delicious food with touching stories. My onion fried HuiGuoRou is my family dish.
BTW, The famous French onion soup is never my dish, because I felt the onion lost the texture, the softness, and the sweetness I enjoy.