Sichuan Cuisine · FFET10149
Suan Ni Bai Rou (Sichuan sliced pork with garlic sauce)
A Sichuan cold starter of thinly sliced white-boiled pork under a sauce of garlic, soy sauce and chili oil.
A white square porcelain plate has thin boiled pork around cucumber shreds in shiny red chili oil and garlic soy sauce, topped with white sesame and scallion, with brown chopsticks resting diagonally beside it at lower right.
The regional cooking of Sichuan and Chongqing, known for its wide range of flavour types.
Suan ni bai rou is a Sichuan cold dish of white-boiled pork sliced thin and laid on cucumber, dressed with mashed garlic, soy sauce, black vinegar, sesame oil and chili oil. The traditional method is to boil the meat for 30 minutes, soak it in the broth for 20 minutes, let it cool and slice it about 0.2 cm thick. The modern method took shape in Republic-era Chengdu, where Wang Xingyuan, founder of Zhulin Xiaocan, refined and established it. This history appears in a November 7, 2020 article, which gives no specific year for the method's establishment.
What
Suan ni bai rou is a Sichuan cold dish of white-boiled pork sliced thin, laid on cucumber and dressed with mashed garlic, soy sauce, black vinegar, sesame oil and chili oil, served as a starter.2,3,4
When
The modern method took shape in Republic-era Chengdu, with no specific year given. The proposed northern nomadic origins of plain-boiled pork and the cited passage about Manchu ritual pork in Yuan Mei's Suiyuan Shidan provide speculative background, not a date for the dish.1
Where
Suan ni bai rou belongs to Sichuan's cold dishes, and the Chengdu restaurant Zhulin Xiaocan established the method. The available accounts do not establish a definite place of origin.1,2
How
The pork, either belly or hind leg, is simmered for 30 to 40 minutes with ginger, scallion, Sichuan pepper and cooking wine, then cooled and sliced very thin. Mashed garlic is mixed with soy sauce, black vinegar, sugar and sesame oil for the sauce, chili oil is made by pouring hot oil over chili flakes, and the sauce is often thinned with a little of the cooking broth.2,3,4
Why
Serving it slightly warm helps release the aromas of garlic and chili oil, while some Chengdu eateries serve it cold. Accounts differ on serving temperature, with no single rule.1
Impact and influence
Suan ni bai rou appears in English-language recipes as a Sichuan starter and should be distinguished from a similarly named takeout dish. The available material identifies no intangible heritage or time-honored-brand listing for it.1,2,3,4
No tale about this food has been found.
Grandma Li
This is a simplified home version, not the traditional restaurant method.
This is the Sichuan style as I make it at home, a simplified home version: the pork is cooked in an ordinary pot, and the chili oil is made by pouring hot oil straight over chili flakes. The amounts and timings below are my own choices at home, informed by two published recipes.
Ingredients
- Pork belly (or hind leg) 400 g, in one piece
- Ginger 4 slices
- Scallions 2, cut into sections
- Sichuan peppercorns, for boiling 1 teaspoon
- Cooking wine, for boiling 30 ml
- Cucumber 1 (about 200 g), cut into thin strips
- Garlic 6 cloves, mashed to a paste
- Light soy sauce 30 ml
- Black vinegar 15 ml
- Sugar 10 g
- Sesame oil 5 ml
- Chili flakes 10 g
- Cooking oil, for the chili flakes 60 ml
- Cooking broth from the pork 45 ml, set aside
- Toasted white sesame seeds 1 teaspoon, optional
Steps
- Put the pork, ginger, scallion sections, peppercorns and wine in a pot and add cold water to cover the meat. Bring it to a boil over high heat, skim off the foam, then turn the heat down and simmer for 30 to 40 minutes. I call it done when a chopstick slides through easily and the cut surface is no longer pink.
- Turn off the heat and leave the pork in the broth until it is no longer too hot to touch. Scoop out 45 ml of the broth and keep it.
- Put the chili flakes in a heatproof bowl. Heat the oil until small bubbles start to rise, turn off the heat, pour it carefully over the chili flakes, stir, and let it cool a little.
- Stir the mashed garlic with the soy sauce, vinegar, sugar and sesame oil, add it to the chili oil, and thin it with the saved broth until it pours smoothly.
- Spread the cucumber strips on a plate. Lift out the pork, pat it dry, slice it about 2 mm thick, and arrange the slices on the cucumber.
- Spoon the sauce over the pork, sprinkle on the sesame seeds if you like, and serve at once.
Tips
- I let the pork cool in its broth before slicing, which makes it easier to cut thin; this is my own way.
- Hot oil spits when it hits the chili flakes, so I use a fairly deep heatproof bowl and pour with my arm held well back.
Allergens: soy, wheat, sesame