Longan-Style Salted Pork Belly
A traditional Sichuan dish featuring meat rolls shaped like longan—rich yet not greasy, with a mellow, aromatic flavor.
Ingredients
Pork belly with skin (scrubbed clean)
500 g
Caramel coloring
10 g
Sichuan salt
2 g
Yibin fermented mustard greens (chopped)
150 g
Soy sauce
15 g
Pickled red chili peppers (stems and seeds removed, each cut into 4 segments)
6
Cooked vegetable oil
500 g
Fermented black beans
15 g
Instructions
1
Step 1
Scrub the pork clean, place it in a soup pot and boil until about 50% cooked, then remove and pat dry. While still hot, brush the surface of the pork evenly with the caramel coloring.
2
Step 2
Set a wok over high heat, add the oil and heat to about 60% hot. Add the pork block and fry until the skin turns reddish-brown, then remove and soak in the broth. Once the skin softens, take the pork out and let it cool, then cut it into 24 slices, each about 11 cm long, 4 cm wide, and 0.2 cm thick. Remove the stems and seeds from the pickled red chilies and cut each chili into 4 segments (24 segments total). Rinse and finely chop the fermented mustard greens.
3
Step 3
Stuff each pickled chili segment with 2 fermented black beans. Wrap a pork slice around each stuffed chili to form a small cylinder resembling a longan, then stand them upright in a bowl, arranging them neatly in rows. Drizzle with the soy sauce (along with the salt), spread the chopped mustard greens evenly on top, and steam over high heat for about 2 hours until tender. Remove from the steamer, invert the bowl onto a serving plate to unmold, and serve.
