Home / Tours / Food / Cooking Class / Meat & Poultry /

Twice-Cooked Pork

Chinese name: 回锅肉 (huí guō ròu)
Style: Sichuan Cuisine
Characteristics: With broad bean paste and garlic sprouts added, the Twice Cooked Pork looks red and green in color. For the pork is double cooked, it is fat but not greasy.

The Twice Cooked Pork, also called Double Cooked Pork or Hui Guo Rou in Chinese, is said to rank the first among Sichuan dishes. If there is a chance to go to Sichuan, it is strongly recommended to taste the authentic Twice Cooked Pork. The dish, sister dish of Yan Jian Rou (Chili Pork), has spread its fame throughout China even the world. It tastes more flavorsome if eating together with rice, so many housewives would love to prepare for their family members and guests. Nowadays, the dish varies a lot in taste according to the flavors of different areas by using different ingredients and seasonings, but the way of cooking the pork is unchanged as the following recipe.

Recipe of Making Twice Cooked Pork

Ingredients:

pork, 300g
garlic sprouts, 100g

Tip: Besides garlic sprouts, dry cowpeas, chili peppers, leeks, pickles, cabbages, and onions can also be used as the fixings to go with pork in this dish.

Seasonings:

ginger, broad bean paste, fermented soy beans, cooking oil, white sugar, cooking wine

Note: The amounts of the ingredients and seasonings listed above can be appropriately adjusted according to one’s personal taste.

Preparation:

1. Clean and cut the garlic sprouts into 3cm sections.
2. Cut the ginger into small slices
3. Chop the broad bean paste.

Methods:

STEP

Boil the pork: Put ginger slices and pour some cooking wine into a wok with cold water. Add the entire pork. Heat over big fire for 15min. Get rid of the scum. Pick out the pork.

STEP

Slice the pork. You should let the pork cool down a little before slicing it.

STEP

Fry and season the pork slices: Heat the cooking oil and add the pork slices to fry until rolling up a little over low heat. Push aside the pork slices. Add in the broad bean paste, fermented soy beans and ginger. Stir-fry for 5sec and mix with the pork. Turn to high heat and stir fry for 30-60sec.

STEP

Add in the garlic sprouts and stir-fry for 20-30sec. Add some white sugar. Mix with other ingredients. Turn off the heat and dish up.

The Twice Cooked Pork is cooked now. Pick one and have a taste. The flavor is awesome.

Origin of the Twice Cooked Pork

The legend goes that in ancient time people in Sichuan Province would eat the Double Cooked Pork on the first and the fifteen days in the first lunar month every year. At that time, the common way was to boil the pork first, then fry over high heat, which is quite similar with the present cooking method. In late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), a Hanlin, member of Imperial Academy, surnamed Ling engaged himself to study the cooking after he was demoted from the court. He changed the original cooking method by getting rid of the meat smell first. Then he steamed the pork in a waterproof container. In this way, the freshness of the pork was kept and the appearance was bright. Since then, the steamed Twice Cooked Pork, which was originally popular in Sichuan Province only, became well-known throughout China.

Other materials show that the Twice Cooked Pork can be dated back to the North Song Dynasty (960-1127), and the cooking method became popular in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Till the Qing Dynasty, the broad bean paste was created, which helped to improve the flavor of the dish. From then on, the Double Cooked Pork had become a must-try in Sichuan Cuisine.

Our Guests Attending Cooking Class

Our Guests Making Dumplings

Ms. Jacqueline & Ms. Debora from the United States, Ms. Marian & Mr. Melvin from the United Kingdom joined our family visit in Xi'an. They enjoyed the home-made Chinese dishes offered by the hostess, and took part in the cooking class to make dumplings and learn to cook Twice-Cooked Pork. Quoted Joan’s words, she loved cooking so the opportunity to cook in a Chinese kitchen was wonderful.
Having Meal in a Local Family

Mr. Peter from UK, Mr. James & Ms. Lisa from USA made a family visit when joining our tour group in Xi'an. They learned to make Twice-Cooked Pork & Chow Mein in a local Xi'an family. After the tour, they especially recommended it in their feedback:"...The meals we had with Travel China Guide were very nice! We ate one in a restaurant near the Terracotta warriors which was a very nice restaurant; one was at the dumpling place in Xi'an and the other in a Chinese person's apartment. I would recommend the home made meal most; it was pleasant, friendly and relaxing with excellent home-made food..."

See details at Mr. Peter's feedback
Ms. Indrani & Ms. Ratna Learn to Make Twice Cooked Pork

Ms. Indrani & Ms. Ratna from India joined TravelChinaGuide's family tour in Xi'an, during which they learned to cook Twice-Cooked Pork on site under the instructions and help of the hostess. They appreciated the special service in the family a lot.

See details at Ms. Indrani's feedback

More popular meat dishes in China:

- Last updated on Dec. 09, 2022 -

Questions & Answers on Twice-Cooked Pork

Asked by Emily Volz from AMERICA | Mar. 02, 2015 08:34

I cannot get good enough flavor...dishes come out bland...please advise

When I try stir fry recipes from different Chinese cookbooks (good ones by reputation), following them, the result tends to be bland. I think it's the saucing technique. Recipes usually call for small amounts of soy or soy + other ingredient like black beans, I can never get the same flavor as a good Chinese restaurant gets. I don't use monosodium glutamate (not unwilling to) but very few even call for it.

How can I improve the flavor of the food. I like high flavor, but not so strong it is overwhelming, which often happens when I add more soy, or black beans, or other flavorings.

I'd appreciate some advice.

Emily Volz
Silver Spring, MD

Answers (1)

Answered by Lee from MALAYSIA | Mar. 05, 2015 00:34

Emily, not everyone of us can be good cooks even we have the recipes provided by the cooks. You need to know that the restaurants have their own secret. The ones we find on the internet are just ordinary ones. I don't know whether you heard about this. One of my friend who married a great cook. However, the cook seldom cooks dishes at home. Do you know why? After a whole day's hard work, he is too tired so that he has no interest in making dishes at home. More importantly, the kitchen at home is different from that in the restaurants. He doesn't have profestional tools or perfect seasonings at home.

So you don't need to compare your dishes with those made by the chef at the restaurants. Recipes are for your reference only. You need to season dishes according to your own taste. If you read that, you will find that they all mention duration and degree of heating. But it' not easy for you to practice. By the way, the seasonings are added according to the amount of the materials and personal tastes. No balance is used to figure out how much soy or vinegar should be added. On the other hand, you need to understand when to add seasonings.

In a word, you need to cook more dishes and try to find your own secret of cooking. The more dishes you cook, the more experience you will have.