Twice-Cooked Pork Slices

 

Twice-Cooked Pork Slices

Twice-cooked pork or double-cooked pork (回锅肉 huíguōròu) is one of the most famous Sichuan pork dishes. Its Chinese name is huiguorou, which means ‘returned-to-the-pot meat’. Pork is boiled in the pot first. Then it is cooked again with other ingredients, including broad bean paste (doubanjiang), fermented black soybeans (douchi), garlic, ginger, and so on.

It was said that the dish was created by a Chinese poet called Su Dongpo (a.k.a. Su Shi) in the  Song Dynasty era (960–1279).

Su made a delicious pork dish for his friends one day. He was boiling pork in a pot and walked out of the house and forgot about it. After he returned, he found the simmering pork had turned very soft. He tasted the pork sizzling in its fat and found the pork had become softer and more delicious than with his previous boiling method. So, he returned it to the pot with the other ingredients and impressed his friends with it.

Due to its origin story and its taste, ‘twice-cooked pork’ has become very popular.