Name: Shredded Pork with Fish-fragrant Sauce
Yield: Serves 6 with 3 Other Dishes
Cuisine: China
Ingredients: 15 ml (1 tbsp) Shaoxing wine or medium dry sherry; 5 ml (1 tsp) tapioca or potato flour; 10 ml (2 tsp) finely chopped garlic; 75–90 ml (5–6 tbsp) peanut or vegetable oil; 10–15 ml (2–3 tsp) Chinese rice vinegar; 7.5 ml (1½ tsp) caster sugar; 10 ml (2 tsp) finely chopped ginger; 15 ml (1 tbsp) water; 4 ml (¾ tsp) tapioca or potato flour dissolved in 60 ml (4 tbsp) chicken stock or water; 15 ml (1 tbsp) sesame oil; 22.5 ml (1½ tbsp) thin or light soy sauce; 15–30 ml (1–2 tbsp) hot broadbean paste; 1.5 ml (¼ tsp) salt; 15 g (½ oz) cloud ears, reconstituted; 50–75 g (2–3 oz) canned bamboo shoots, blanched; 6 water chestnuts, if fresh, peeled, if canned, drained; 450 g (1 lb) pork fillet or lean chump end; 4–5 spring onions, trimmed and cut into small rounds, white and green parts separated

Preparation info

Serves
6
with 3 Other Dishes

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Classic Food of China

By Yan-Kit So

Published 1992

About

Sichuan is in the western interior of China, with no access to the sea, hence the absence of sea-water fish for local consumption. But the people there, galvanised by their vivid imagination, have invented a flavour they call fish-fragrant – a combination of spicy hot broadbean paste with vinegar and sugar. Meat, such as pork and rabbit, becomes seductively delicious when stir-fried with a sauce of this flavour.