Weeknight Pork and Zhacai

Xueci Cheng brings us a recipe for perhaps the most ubiquitous home-cooked dish of her childhood: stir-fried pork slivers (ròusī, 肉丝), in this case featuring pickled mustard and called zhàcài ròusī, 榨菜肉丝.

"Rousi dishes were in both my grandmas’ and my mom’s  repertoires," she writes, "often flavored with crunchy green peppers or a delectable fish-fragrant sauce. Whenever these women needed to feed a hungry family, a plate of stir-fried pork was the quick and easy solution. 

"The most well-known rousi dish is yúxiāng ròusī, fish-fragrant pork, which consists of pork slivers, celtuce and wood ear mushroom cooked in a thick, garlicky sweet-and-sour sauce. But all kinds of different ways of preparing this type of stir-fried meat are common in Sichuan home cooking. In fact, the cookbook Popular Sichuan Cuisine (大众川菜), first published in the 1970s, features more than 10 rousi dishes made with ingredients like onion, squash, tender chives or tofu skin.

"Zhacai rousi is a classic version with a savory and umami flavor profile known as xiánxiānwèi (咸鲜味). Zhacai is a preserved vegetable made from the tuber of the mustard plant, prized for its crisp, tender texture and rich umami taste. This dish uses zhacai as a potent flavor enhancer, giving the meaty combination an aromatic, umami-filled flavor with a slightly sweet aftertaste."

I myself have frequently encountered this combo as a soup in Sichuan, and Xueci says that you can turn it into a soup (zhàcài ròusītāng, 榨菜肉丝汤) by simmering the zhacai in stock and then adding pork slivers and tender leafy greens, such as pea shoots. 
 

How to Love Zhacai

Coincidentally, our affiliate Chinese Cooking Demystified recently devoted an entire video to zhacai and how to eat and cook with it. As Stephanie says by way of introduction: "I know this little bag may not look like much, but, trust us, it's a Chinese icon for a reason."

She then demonstrates how to eat it, the first way being straight from the bag as an addictive snack or bar food. She also demonstrates three prepared dishes: a zhacai and cucumber cold dish; a stiry-fry like Xueci's above but with egg instead of pork; and a Cantonese steamed noodle dish. 

Don't forget that when you sponsor Chinese Cooking Demystified on Patreon for as little as $5 a month, you get not only their videos and community but also a 10% discount on all your Mala Market orders!
 

How to Cook With Soy Sauce

With our premium soy sauce at this bargain price, you can afford to use half a bottle to make aromatic sweet soy sauce, or fuzhi soy sauce. Combine it with your favorite chili oil to make Chengdu's famous Zhong dumpling sauce or add it to cold noodles or sesame noodles for that little extra, sweet-and-spiced oomph! Because it's already so rich, Zhongba 360 soy sauce makes a particularly umami-packed fuzhi soy sauce. 

Aromatic Sweet Soy Sauce

• 1 cup light soy sauce
• ½ cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 star anise
• 1 inch cassia bark
• 1 teaspoon Sichuan pepper
• 1 smoked caoguo (black cardamom)

Also see our thorough guide on How to Cook With Soy Sauce for dozens of recipes using both light and dark soy sauces.