![]() ![]() There are hundreds of factories there that make doubanjiang, from super-small producers to large industrial ones. It’s intense! The best kind comes from Pixian, which is a county about a half hour from Chengdu. What to look for in doubanjiangįor this kind of dish, I use a doubanjiang that we carry at Fly by Jing, which is aged for three years. Erjingtiao is usually mixed into a blend because it’s mild and you can keep eating throughout the meal-you don’t have to stop because it’s too spicy. Other chiles are simply brighter in color and make the dish look more appealing. Some chiles are closer to ghost peppers, used purely for their heat, but they’re not known to be very fragrant. In Chengdu, for example, the goal is not to get as spicy as you can, but to get the most flavor and balance. ![]() ![]() I can’t even describe how good it is.Įrjingtiao chiles are the most popular variety of chile in Sichuan, and they're often used in doubanjiang because they are quite mild but really fragrant and flavorful. You can cook it for a long time on super-low heat and the flavor just penetrates the meat, which becomes so, so tender. When you cook rock sugar with dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, Shaoxing wine, star anise, and cassia bark, it becomes this incredibly aromatic sauce. I find that it’s not as sweet as regular cane sugar, and it gives your food a beautiful glaze. (If I use pork shoulder, I’ll shred the meat like pulled pork, which you can use in tacos or dumplings.) The sauce is made with dark soy sauce and light soy sauce the dark soy sauce functions for color and depth of flavor, while the light soy sauce adds saltiness. Hong shao rou is made with rich, fatty pork-sometimes I use shoulder, but traditionally it’s pork belly. This recipe from Betty Liu’s My Shanghai has a lot of the same elements, with the addition of preserved mustard greens, which makes it saltier and more savory. I lived in Shanghai for seven years, and one of my favorite dishes from there is red braised pork belly, hong shao rou. Homestyle and comfort food is usually what I reach for these days, and all three of these dishes are definitely that for me. I’ve been missing those big pork dinners, but now that I’ve moved into a new place with a backyard, I’ve got an outdoor dining setup that’s perfect for hosting in a post-vaccination world. They raise Berkshire hogs and sell every part of the pig. During the pandemic I found an amazing pork purveyor in L.A., where I’m based, called Peads & Barnetts. Our food, our culture, and our people have value, and it's about time our compensation reflects that.When I host a dinner party I usually get a big chunk of pork jowl or shoulder or belly: Making a big pork dish is typically my go-to. Real food, real ingredients, ethical sourcing and manufacturing comes at a cost. It is the reason that in 2018, I still wasn't able to find any premium Chinese food on grocery shelves. This is a cuisine born from resilience in the face of racism and xenophobia, and the expectation of Chinese food as cheap is a paradigm that we have existed within ever since. What made this possible was the exploitation of these underpaid and overworked laborers, which in turn is what made it so popular. To attract diners, prices were kept low, which made Chinese food an affordable luxury that helped democratize the experience of dining out. But because of a loophole that allowed merchants to operate restaurants, Chinese food spread like wildfire across the country. Chinese food proliferated in America directly as a result of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882- the first law to ban the immigration of a group of people solely based on race. ![]()
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