This is a famous dish of the Sichuan cuisine. Interestingly, I have never found one Shanghainese restaurant here in Hong Kong not listing this Double Cooked or Twice Cooked Pork Slices on their menu. A possible reason is that they love spicy food as well. Added to this, my guess is, this dish is just too simple to adapt because unlike other Sichuan foods, which require lots of spices and different types of chilies, the key ingredients for making this dish include only chili bean sauce, pork slices, green and red chili peppers.

Double Cooked
As the name suggests, we have to cook the pork twice. First it has to be cooked by boiling or steaming. After the meat is done and cut into slices, return it to wok again for stir frying with other ingredients. Actually its Chinese name 回鍋肉 (huí ɡuō ròu in Mandarin) literally means ‘return to wok and cook the meat again’.

• Ingredients
• 50g lean pork or pork belly
• 300g cabbage (about half a cabbage)
• 1 pc dried tofu
• 1 red chili pepper
• 1 green chili pepper
• 1 sprig spring onion, cut into sections
• 3 slices ginger
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp oil

• Marinades for Pork
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 tsp yellow wine
• 1/4 white pepper
• Seasonings
• 1 tbsp sweet flour paste
• 1 tsp chili bean sauce
• salt to taste (~1/2 tsp)

• Replacement for Sweet Flour Paste
• I don’t use this paste very often, so when it is not available in my stock, I will make my own fake sweet flour paste (above in dark-brown) by combining the use of the followings, which altogether replaces 1 table spoon of the sweet flour paste,
• 1 tsp soy bean paste
• 1 tsp brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp dark soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp water
• Yet when I am served with Roasted Peking Duck, I would not allow any replacements but the real sweet flour paste. Just side track a bit as I am so reminded of the fragrant, crispy Peking Duck.