Fish Fragrant Pork

The mood took me, as it does occasionally (well quite often in fairness) for Sichuan food and so, as ever, I turned to my trusty, and slightly grubby in places, Sichuan Cookery by Fuchsia Dunlop.

One of the ingredients, pickled chilli paste, is difficult, if not impossible, to get here - the original recipe called for 2 tablespoons of it or to sub with chilli bean paste so I chopped some Chinese pickled chillies v finely with a cleaver until it pretty much made a paste and used half that, half chilli bean paste.

The dried cloud ear mushrooms I have are ready shredded but if you need to slice them yourself do so after soaking them and try and get approximately the same width and length as the pork and bamboo shoot strips (which incidentally I also often buy pre shredded) so all the slivers are approximately the same.

As I frequently do I’ve cut down the amount of oil used and then served over brown rice.

By the way, I’ve explained previously that fish fragrant doesn’t mean that this tastes fishy - see more here.


Fish Fragrant Pork Slivers (yu xiang rou si)
serves 2

300g pork, cut into long fine slivers
small handful of cloud ear mushrooms / black fungus, soaked & sliced
75g tinned bamboo shoot strips
salt
3 tbsp groundnut oil
1 tbsp Chinese pickled chillies
1 tbsp chilli bean paste
1½ tsp garlic, finely chopped
2 tsp ginger, finely chopped
1 spring onion, finely sliced
For the marinade
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp potato flour
1 tbsp Shaoxing rice wine
1 tbsp cold water
For the sauce
1½ tsp sugar
1 tbsp Chinkiang black vinegar
1 tsp light soy sauce
¼ tsp salt
¾ tsp cornflour
3 tbsp water

Place the pork in a bowl with all the marinade ingredients and set aside for half an hour.

In a small bowl mix together all the sauce ingredients and again set aside.

When you are ready to cook, heat the oil in a wok until shimmering and just starting to smoke. Toss in the pork and stir fry briskly until the strips have separated. Push them to one side, tip the wok slightly to the other side and tip the chilli bean & pickle pastes in. Stir-fry briefly until fragrant and the oil is red.

Add the garlic and ginger and stir fry for about 30 seconds more before mixing everything together.

Tip in the bamboo shoots and mushrooms and stir fry until just hot.

Give the sauce a quick stir in the bowl and then add to the wok as well. Stir around quickly and then throw in the spring onions.

Stir around briefly and then serve over rice.