Hong Shao Rou (Red Cooked Pork)
I don’t understand why Hong Shao Rou (紅燒肉) is never on a Chinese restaurant menu in America. Maybe it is simply just too exotic or “home style.” But ask any Chinese person and they can tell you stories of grandmother’s Hong Shao Rou. Family recipes are often guarded secrets, and only passed down within the family members through generations.
Photography by Ron Boszko
Many different approaches exist for preparing this dish. There are always debates as to the merit of caramelizing the sugar first, or just simply adding it to the braising liquid. Controversies are often stirred up as to whether spices such as star anise and Osmanthus bark should be added. Hard boiled eggs are sometime added to the dish. And in the Southwestern region of China, where chili is king, very often dried chilies are added to spice up the dish. All these just create even more mystique to the dish.
Hong Shao Rou is typically made with pork belly meat, a cut commonly used for making bacon. It is layered with fat and results in a very tender and flavorful pork dish. One can argue that this is rather unhealthy, but I simply cannot justify using any other cut because it is just so wrong otherwise!
Hong Shao Rou is served regularly at home as daily meal and yet can also be served at celebratory occasions. It is quite common to serve this dish with small steamed buns. The buns are often made from round dough folded into half circle resembling a clam shell. One holds a piece of Hong Shao Rou in the steamed bun like hot dog in a bun. These buns can be purchased from Chinese grocery stores, although sometime I enjoy making them at home. More often than not I simply serve this dish with some steamed vegetables and rice at home.
So without further ado, here is my version of Hong Shau Rou.
-
Hong Shau Rou (Red Cooked Pork)
-
- Preparation time: 10 minutes
- Slow cooking time: 50 minutes
-
- 1 1/2 lb. pork belly meat cut into two inch cubes
- 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 3 cloves of garlic peeled
- 3 whole star anise
- 2 tablespoons dark soy sauce (老抽)
- 1/4 cup Shaoxing wine (紹興酒)
- 1 1/2 cups clear stock (made from chicken and pork bones plus ginger) or water
-
- Melt the sugar and the vegetable oil in a medium pot over medium high heat. Continue heating until the sugar is slightly brown. About 3 minutes. Put the cubed pork in the pot and brown it with the caramelized sugar. About 8 minutes.
- Put the garlic, star anise, dark soy sauce, rice wine and clear stock into the pot. Cover the pot and simmer over low heat. Cook for about 40 minutes. Stir the meat every 10 minutes to make sure the bottom of the pot does not get burnt. Remove the cover and turn the heat to medium high. Cook the meat for another 10 minutes until the sauce reduces to a smooth consistency.
- This dish, like most stew dishes, is better if left overnight and reheated the next day. But if you can’t wait then plate it in a shallow bowl and garnish with shredded scallion and sprigs of cilantro.
January 21st, 2008 at 11:29 pm
It’s really good if you well prepared
February 8th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
[...] I had to maintain our family tradition of serving Hong Shao Rou (Red Cooked Pork) for Chinese New Year. I must admit this dish is a favorite in my family, and has [...]
February 10th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
This is an unbelievably wonderful dish and that is a huge compliment coming from a Jew. So…..how can I make this with beef?
February 13th, 2008 at 1:54 am
Hi Rachel, I just made this dish with beef today and it seems to be fine. I always add extra rice wine and ginger and chillis( the dried ones work really well). I also added potatoes cos my daughter loves them in the sauce.
February 13th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Jenny, I’m glad you’re making red cooked beef. It is indeed a delicious variation. Adding chili pepper is very common for beef. I would also put dried tangerine peel to the pot. It creates a very nice aroma in the end. You can also add daikon radishes and/or carrots to your red cooked beef. I will post a proper recipe on this soon.
March 18th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
We made the “red cooked pork” recipe the other night. We even found the little steamed clamshell buns at our local Chinese market. It came out really good, and our kids loved the little buns (which we steamed in our steamer.) The combo of the meat and bun was quite delicious!
March 19th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
kmcgra, I am so pleased you tried the recipe. With me it never fails to please the crowd. So keep cooking!
April 29th, 2008 at 12:04 am
I’m enjoying this blog very much and thank you for the red-cooked pork recipe.
In our house, we call our version of red-cooking “Chinese adobo”! We usually serve it with egg. (We did a pork belly version and a chicken version of adobo: the pictures and recipes are posted on our blog.)
I look forward to more dishes from your Chinese home kitchen. We want to cook more Chinese dishes and want to recover some of the dishes we have lost since moving away from home almost twenty years ago.
Please keep cooking!
June 13th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
I’ve made your recipe several times, and really enjoy it. I’ve noticed varying levels of an unpleasant “grainy” aftertaste. It seems like this would be the carmelized sugar not getting dissolved or something. Any solutions?
June 14th, 2008 at 10:29 am
jm, I’m glad you enjoy this red cooked pork recipe. I believe the caramelized sugar would have been dissolved after cooking for almost an hour in the braising liquid. My guess is that perhaps you are tasting the pieces of star anise. In Chinese cooking herbs and spices are often left in chunks during cooking and when serving. Although this practice lends a bit of rustic touch to the dishes, it often forces the eater to be vigilant when consuming the food. You can always wrap these spices in a cheese cloth during cooking and remove the package before serving.
June 14th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Sorry, I forgot to mention that I don’t use star anise, but Chinese 5 spice instead. Now that you mention it, it must be that I most recently had only 40 minutes for it to stew. I expected the effect on the meat, but not on the sugar. Thanks for the reply.
September 23rd, 2008 at 2:37 pm
I’ve made this dish only once so far, but enjoyed it many times as a kid when mum cooked them. You are probably right about it being “home-style”. I believe some versions would include pieces of yam too. Very nice pictures. 现在我想吃紅燒肉了.
September 26th, 2008 at 10:09 am
There’s a place in Philadelphia, called Dim Sum Garden (reviewed by Craig La Ban for their xiaolongbao chinese soup dumpling) that has this on their english menu under brown stewed pork. It’s delicious, actually better than my mom’s, which is saying something.
So for any Philadelphians, go check it out!
September 26th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
[...] is now perfumed with the lush, dark scent of star anise, and a hybrid of Appetite for China and Red Cook’s hongshao rou is resting in a crock, awaiting tonight’s guests. Best of all, I’m [...]
October 2nd, 2008 at 5:50 am
Great recipe – this is a superb dish.
October 7th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Love the caramelizing the sugar for a vibrant red color. The only thing I didn’t like about my attempt with pork belly (http://caviarandcodfish.com/2008/10/05/belly-up/) was that the color was a little drab. Thanks for the tip!
December 1st, 2008 at 8:34 am
I love this dish. My family is Taiwanese-American– my mom and grandparents have been making this for us all our lives. I especially like it when they add boiled eggs to the recipe, along with carrots and potatoes… It’s really a great stewed meat dish to pair with steamed rice. We often replace pork with beef as well because we are more health conscientious. I also suggest adding some green onion/leeks into the stew. Enjoy!! >_<
December 4th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
I too am Taiwanese-American. I remember eating this with the boiled eggs with rice congee when I was a chld. (I am in my 40’s now.) I made this dish today. I couldn’t find pork belly, so I used a boston butt roast that I cut up. It brought back memories! This is Asian comfort food.
January 13th, 2009 at 12:53 am
[...] Red cooked pork* – vegetarian form [...]
January 21st, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Can this be done with pork ribs cut across the bone into small pieces (pork riblets)?
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:04 am
Hi, I made this tonight for my Chinese wife. I don’t eat meat so I had to go by the recipe and hope it tasted good. She was suprised I could cook Hong Shao Rou and said it tasted great!
Question for you: When I bought the pork belly it came with skin. Do you normally take off the skin or leave it on?
Thanks!
Mark
San Francisco
January 22nd, 2009 at 9:42 am
Carmen,
Yes, this recipe can be adapted for pork ribs. Do cut the ribs into short pieces. Red cooking can be adapted for many differnet types of meat and cut. Red cook pork ribs are known as “hong shao pai gu” (紅燒排骨) in Chinese.
Mark,
I am so pleased you enjoy my recipe. And yes, you should leave the skin on. In fact the skin is prized by many Chinese. The texture is very much an acquired taste for the American palate. But once you’ve tried it you’ll never go back to lean meat.
January 24th, 2009 at 9:04 pm
I have red cooked pork shoulder/picnic ham with great results and plenty left over pork for fried rice. Cooking time a few hours. Richard
February 12th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Just an update, I used this recipe but instead of pork belly, i substituted baby back pork ribs. My wife says it was still great! I had the butcher cut them into small pieces and was even easier to cook (pork belly can be hard to cut).
February 20th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
[...] Red cooked pork – hey irene, would you hit that? i’d hit it [...]
February 20th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
1 more final update, made this again but this time added hardboiled eggs…because it seemed similar to what i have seen with tea eggs…and the wife loved them!
February 22nd, 2009 at 10:50 pm
Mark, So good to hear you enjoying this recipe. I am glad you experimented with different cut of meat and adding hard boiled eggs. Yes, hard boiled eggs in red cooked pork is very traditional.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:52 am
[...] Hong Shao Rou Red Cooked Pork | Red Cook. [...]