Steamed Pork with Fermented Chili
A traditional Sichuan folk dish from the "three-steaming, nine-layer" (三蒸九扣) banquet style: fried pork belly steamed together with zhà hǎi jiāo (fermented chili), yielding tender skin and rich, fatty meat with a gently tangy, mildly spicy flavor.
Ingredients
Pork belly with skin
750g
Fermented chili (zhā chili)
150g
Rapeseed oil
25g
Dark soy sauce
25g
Cooking wine
10g
Sichuan salt
3g
Vinegar
5g
Sichuan peppercorns
5
Instructions
1
Frying to shape the pork
Pluck the hairs from the pork and singe the skin. Scrub clean, then boil in a pot until cooked through; remove and pat the skin dry with clean gauze, then coat it evenly with dark soy sauce. Heat rapeseed oil in a wok to 180°C, then fry the pork skin until golden brown. Remove and soak in a soup pot until the skin wrinkles, then take out and cut with a knife into diamond-shaped pieces where the skin remains connected but the meat is separated.
2
Steaming
Place the pieces skin-side down in a bowl. Mix the cooking wine, dark soy sauce, salt, vinegar, and Sichuan peppercorns together, then pour over the pork. Top with the fermented chili, then steam until tender. Remove and invert onto a serving bowl to serve.
