MUZIChinese Matrix
Northeastern Cuisine · FFET10147
A Northeast feast after the winter pig slaughter, with sauerkraut, pork belly and blood sausage stewed in one pot.
A wide, shallow black iron pot holds a clear pale-gold broth with shredded sour cabbage and slices of pork belly with white fat edges, a little scallion green on top, an iron ladle resting in it and steam rising.
The regional cooking of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang, built on pickled cabbage and stews, generous and strongly flavoured.
Sha zhu cai is the meal Northeast China serves after the winter slaughter of the household pig, built around sauerkraut, pork belly and fresh blood sausage stewed in a large iron pot, with a whole-pig feast running to more than 20 dishes. In a Wei family's account recorded in 2016, Qing landlords of banner families killed a pig after harvest and fed hired farmers sour cabbage with fatty pork, giving the dish its name. A 2021 account instead links it to a Manchu thanksgiving pig sacrifice. Neither origin account has an original document for verification; the former is one family's version.
Sha zhu cai is the Northeast's meal after the winter slaughter of the household pig: pork belly, sauerkraut and fresh blood sausage stewed in a large iron pot, often with more dishes from the pig set around it.1,2,4,5
Accounts from 2016 and 2021 link the custom to winter pig slaughter in the Qing, but differ in detail; neither has an original document for verification, and no dated original text was found. In the 2016 account, one family says they brought the dish to Shuangcheng in Harbin in 1995. Before reform and opening-up, rural households' winter meat came mostly from their own year pigs.1,2
Sha zhu cai is eaten in Northeast China and closely associated with Heilongjiang, including Shuangcheng in Harbin. A February 2024 account also places visitors eating it at a dawn market in Shenyang. Once eaten in farm households in the 12th lunar month, it is now served in restaurants and dawn markets.1,2,3
Pork belly and sauerkraut are stewed in a big iron pot, usually with fresh blood sausage. Sauerkraut is a standard pairing at Northeast tables. A whole-pig feast described in 2016 can run to more than 20 dishes, using the pig from head to tail.1,2,4,5
After the slaughter, relatives, friends and neighbors are invited to eat, and generous portions of meat on the table show hospitality.1,2
In a February 2024 account, sauerkraut is a must at Northeast New Year dinners, visitors seek out sha zhu cai at a dawn market in Shenyang, and local iron-pot restaurants and a hotel offer a blood sausage and sauerkraut pot for the holiday. Some Harbin shops using place names such as Shuangcheng in their names were noted in 2021. No intangible heritage listing was found.1,3
Legend has it that under the Qing, Manchu families who had good news or had recovered from illness slaughtered a large pig to give thanks and invited kin to eat. That meal is said to have turned over time into the pot of pork, blood sausage and sauerkraut.
Told in: A Heilongjiang account told in a self-published article of December 2021, which gives no original source.
Legend has it that in the Qing, banner families did not farm and hired farmers to work the land. After the harvest the landlord killed a pig and fed them sour cabbage with fatty pork, and this is how the dish got its name.
Told in: The telling of a family named Wei in Heilongjiang, reported by Xinhua in February 2016; it is one family's spoken account, with no document to check.
Grandma Li
This is a simplified home version, not the traditional restaurant method.
This is a related home stew, not the full sha zhu cai. The two recipes I read are both pork belly and sour cabbage stews, and neither contains blood sausage, while Northeast sha zhu cai normally includes fresh blood sausage and the other dishes of a whole-pig feast. I did not find a reliable recipe for blood sausage, so the pot I make at home leaves it out, and it is an adapted version only. The amounts and timings below are my own choices at home. One of the reference recipes names no individual author, only the site's name.
Allergens: soy, wheat
