Twice-Cooked Pork

The “twice-cooked” part refers to the pork belly first being simmered in salted water for an hour until fully cooked, sliced, then stir-fried in its own juices. A home-style dish at heart, the pork is then coated with a hearty sauce of fermented black bean, chili bean sauce and yellow rice wine, and mixed with vegetables like cabbage and bell peppers.

When cooking, the important thing to remember is to pat your pork very dry after slicing, so that excess drops of water don’t cause the oil in the wok to splatter. Twice-cooked pork is a little more time-consuming than some of the Sichuan stir-fries I’ve featured so far, but worth a look if you want to delve further into regional Chinese cooking.