What
Dongpo pork is made by cutting skin-on pork belly into big squares and braising them slowly over low heat with Shaoxing rice wine, soy sauce and sugar. The finished meat is glossy red and very tender.1,5,7,8
When
While exiled to Huangzhou, Su Shi wrote Ode to Pork, included in his collected works, about cheap Huangzhou pork cooked slowly over low heat with little water; it does not use the name Dongpo pork. Among the dated texts found so far, Fu Chongju's Chengdu Tonglan (1909) lists Dongpo pork as a Chengdu specialty and banquet dish, noting large pieces but no recipe or origin. The Qingbai Leichao (compiled by Xu Ke, usually dated 1916, though one account puts its first printing in 1917) includes the verse and records the banquet dish's preparation and naming: large pieces of pork cooked in soy sauce and wine until very soft, with the name taken from the verse.2,3,4,9
Where
Hangzhou is the dish's home today, and Dongpo pork belongs to the Hangzhou style of Zhejiang cooking. Huangzhou in Hubei is where the verse was written and a proposed birthplace of the dish, but its origin remains unsettled.1,2,5,10
How
The method is broadly this: cut the pork belly into big squares and blanch them; lay scallion and ginger on the bottom of the pot, set the pork on top skin side up, add Shaoxing wine, soy sauce and sugar, bring to a boil, then braise on low heat. In 2017, Louwailou's method used water below the meat's surface, braising for more than 1 hour and steaming for about 2 hours, taking about 4 hours per batch; a home version braises for 2 hours and steams for half an hour. A traditional method documented in 2022 uses no water, only wine and soy sauce, and takes at least 2 hours.5,7,8
Why
Pork in Huangzhou was cheap, yet the rich would not eat it and the poor did not know how to cook it. Su Shi made this the subject of his verse, advising slow cooking over low heat with little water until the flavor develops. The dish takes its name from the verse, a naming history preserved in the Qingbai Leichao.2,3
Impact and influence
In 2024, Dongpo pork appeared on a list of 10 Hangzhou intangible-heritage specialty dishes at the Hangzhou intangible-heritage food skills challenge. In 2017, Louwailou could make about 1000 pieces a day. In 2022, Hangzhou's Xinxin Hotel, which opened in 1913, limited Dongpo pork to 60 portions a day.5,6,7
Su Shi and the Gifts of Pork and Wine at West Lake
Legend has it that when Su Shi served as an official in Hangzhou he took the work on West Lake in hand, and the townspeople thanked him with gifts of pork and wine. The story is told two ways. In the account recorded by Chinese Wikipedia, he had the lake dredged around 1090 and his household cooked the gift pork to reward the workers; in a 2022 China News Service report, the work was building bridges and dikes, and the cooked pork was given back to the people. In both tellings the dish came to be called Dongpo pork.
Told in: A legend told in Hangzhou in two versions: the dredging and the reward for the workers come from Chinese Wikipedia, whose entry carries a notice that its sourcing is weak; the bridges and dikes and the pork given back to the people come from a 2022 China News Service report.
The Pork of Huangzhou and the Verse
Legend has it that when Su Shi was exiled to Huangzhou he found pork there very cheap; the rich looked down on it and the poor did not know how to cook it. He wrote a verse urging people to cook it slowly over a low fire with little water, and later cooks followed that advice to make Dongpo pork.
Told in: A telling from the Huangzhou area of Hubei; the verse is in Su Shi's collected works, and the Qingbai Leichao also links the dish to it.
Grandma Li
This is a simplified home version, not the traditional restaurant method.
In restaurants Dongpo pork takes several slow hours. This is the simpler way I make it at home: one heavy pot with a lid and a steamer are enough, and I cook a much smaller piece. The amounts and timings below are my own choices at home, scaled down from the proportions of one home recipe, with a few Hangzhou reports as a guide. The pork must be braised until tender and cooked all the way through before it goes to the table.
Ingredients
- Skin-on pork belly 600 g, cut into squares of about 4 cm
- Scallions 60 g, whole stalks
- Ginger 30 g, in thick slices
- Rock sugar 40 g
- Shaoxing rice wine about 250 ml
- Light soy sauce 2 tablespoons, about 30 ml
- Dark soy sauce 1 teaspoon, about 5 ml
Steps
- Put the pork belly in a pot of cold water, bring it to a boil and cook for 5 more minutes. Lift it out, rinse off the foam and drain.
- Cover the bottom of a heavy pot with the scallions and ginger, and set the pork squares on top, skin side up and close together.
- Add the rock sugar, drizzle over the light and dark soy sauce, then pour in the rice wine until it comes about halfway up the meat.
- Bring to a boil over high heat and skim off the foam. Cover tightly, turn the heat to its lowest and braise for about 2 hours, lifting the lid as little as possible.
- Set the pork squares skin side up in a deep dish, strain the cooking juices and pour them over the meat, then steam over high heat for 30 minutes.
- Pour the juices from the dish back into a small pot and reduce over medium heat until slightly thick, then spoon them over the meat. Pick up one piece with chopsticks: the meat should be so soft it parts at a touch, hot in the middle with no raw color. Eat it hot.
Tips
- Following a China News Service report, I add no water and use rice wine instead, so the juices do not turn thin.
- I set the pork skin side up so the skin stays out of the liquid. This is my own habit, and the home recipe I followed arranges it the same way.
Allergens: soy, wheat
