MUZIChinese Matrix
Braised and Sauced Cooked Meats · FFET10203
Pork shank braised soft in a seasoned sauce; in Beijing it is cut from the front shank, lean and fat together, and sliced cold.
A round white porcelain plate holds sliced pork shank and a large uncut bone-in piece coated in glossy brown sauce, with star anise, bay leaves, ginger, garlic and scallion, with wooden chopsticks resting beside the plate.
Meat and poultry simmered in a seasoned sauce or brine stock until the flavour is in, ready to eat as they are.
Jiang zhouzi is pork shank braised in a seasoned sauce until the meat and skin are soft. In Beijing it is a sauced meat sliced cold; the Tianfuhao version uses the front shank, with lean and fat together, and is eaten cold (description dated August 10, 2026). Tianfuhao sauced pork shank craft entered the national intangible cultural heritage list in the 2nd batch of 2008; the listing protects the craft of the Tianfuhao house, not the dish itself. Tianfuhao was founded in 1738 (the 3rd year of Qianlong), which is the shop's founding year; no separate date for the dish itself was found.
Jiang zhouzi is pork shank slowly braised in a seasoned sauce until the lean meat is not dry and the fat is not greasy. The Tianfuhao version uses the front shank, with lean and fat together, and is eaten cold (description dated August 10, 2026).1,3
Tianfuhao was founded in 1738 (the 3rd year of Qianlong). Another entry giving that year carries a missing-sources notice dated December 8, 2023; 1738 is the shop's founding year, and no separate date for the dish itself was found.1,2
The Tianfuhao sauced pork shank heritage item is listed under Beijing. Founder Liu Fengxiang, from Yexian in Shandong, came to Beijing with his grandson Liu Diming after a famine and opened a sauced-meat shop at the northeast corner of Xidan Paifang.1
The Liu family developed the sauce-braising method through repeated trial; specific steps are not documented in the account. The dish uses the front shank, with lean and fat together, and is eaten cold (description dated August 10, 2026).1,3
Tianfuhao began as a sauced-meat shop opened by a Shandong family who came to Beijing during a famine; the reason for choosing pork shank is not documented in the account.1
Tianfuhao sauced pork shank craft is a national intangible heritage item (2nd batch, 2008); the listing covers the house's craft, not the dish itself. Pork shank is also an autumn dish for putting on fat (description dated August 10, 2026).1,3
Legend has it that Empress Dowager Cixi praised the shop's sauced pork shank and gave it a waist tablet, so that a fixed daily supply could be sent to the palace, and the dish came to count as tribute food.
Told in: Told in the national intangible heritage item's introduction and repeated in Chinese Wikipedia; neither gives a date, so it is treated here just as a tale.
Grandma Li
This is a simplified home version, not the traditional restaurant method.
This is the simpler way I make it at home: a family-style soy-sauce braise of pork shank, cooked on the stove, and not the cold sliced sauced meat of Tianfuhao in Beijing. The two recipes I looked at, a Sichuan chili-bean pork hock by a cookbook author and a soy-braised pork hock by a food blogger, are neither the Beijing method, and the second is an adaptation that is roasted before it goes into a slow cooker. I took the soy-sauce route. The 20-minute blanch and the simmer of about two and a half hours follow the chili-bean recipe; the amounts of wine and rock sugar follow it too, and the amount of soy sauce follows the soy-braised recipe, and the rest are my own choices at home.
Allergens: soy, wheat
