Mu Shu Pork

Recipe from Larwence C.C. Chu



Mu Shu is the name of a tree found in Northern China that bears beautiful yellow flowers. When the eggs in this dish are quickly cooked in a preheated wok, they puff up and blossom, resembling the Mu Shu flower.

Vegetarians can leave out the pork, and still have a flavourful dish.

Yields:

6-8 servings

Time Required:

Ingredients:

Marinade

Seasoning


Preparation:

Soak mushroom in warm water for 20 mins.; drain, remove stem, and shred. Soak tiger lily buds in warm water for 20 mins.; drain. Combine pork with MARINADE ingredients in the order listed; mix well and set aside.

To steam, separate pancakes, and fold them in half. Arrange inside a cloth napkin. Place napkin on rack in steamer (or in double boiler), and steam for 3-4 mins. Remove from heat, and keep warm and moist in steamer.

To stir-fry, heat wok (or wide frying pan) over high heat for 1 min., until hot. Add oil, swirling to coat sides. When oil is smoking hot, pour in eggs and scramble until golden; remove and drain. Add pork, stir vigorously to separate, and cook until well done. Remove and drain.

Remove all but 3 Tbsp. (45 mL) oil. Return pork to wok, and add mushrooms, lily buds, and bamboo shoots. Stir-fry for 2 mins. Add cabbage, green onion, eggs, and SEASONINGS. Mix well, and add dash sesame oil. Transfer to platter.

To serve, place green onion slivers on a small plate. Combine Hoisin sauce and sesame oil; place on another small plate. Open wrapper, spread centre lightly with sauce mixture and a few slivers green onion. Spoon about 2 Tbsp. (30 mL) pork into center of wrapper, and fold up, jelly-roll fashion, to eat.

Author's Notes

Time and time again, I've found that my guests don't know how to assemble Mu Shu Pork correctly. Since this is a do-it-yourself dish, show them how to make the first one.

It's often difficult to keep the pancakes warm, so I recommend using a candle (coffee warmer) holder, similar to the bottom of a fondue pot.6 Place a flat pan on top. When your turn comes, quickly reheat your pancake by placing it on top of hot pan for 5 secs.

If you wish, shrimp, chicken, or beef can be substituted for pork.

Oil must be smoking hot, in order to achieve the correct texture for the scrambled eggs.



Mandarin Pancakes

Simple-to-make pancakes that serve as "wrappers" for Peking Duck or Mu Shu Pork.

Yields:

1 ½ dozen

Time Required:

Ingredients:


Preparation:

To shape, mix flour and boiling water, using chopsticks in a bowl; then add cold water. Remove to a board, and knead with palm of hand for 3 mins. Cover with a damp towl for 10 mins. Then, knead again for 3 to 5 mins. Roll into a cylinder about 1 ½" (38 mm) in diametre. Cut off ends, then cut cylinder into 1 ½" (38 mm) -thick pieces.

With either cut side up, press dough down with palm to flatten. Brush one pancake with oil, then place another pancake on top. Roll out into a 5-6" (13-15 cm) pancake.

To pan-fry, heat cast-iron or other heavy-bottom skillet, over moderate heat. Brush with oil. When hot, cook pancake on both sides, for about 1 min. on each side, or until it starts to pull and turn lightly brown. Remove from pan, separating into 2 pancakes. (They come apart easily.) Wrap in dry towel, to retain moisture.

To serve, reheat pancakes, wrapped in a damp towel, in steamer for about 5 mins.; keep warm.


1 Tree mushroom: I think Chef Chu intends what is now called an oyster mushroom (genus Pleurotus). In any event, do not under any circumstances forage for wild mushrooms, on trees or elsewhere, unless you're an expert mycologist. It's not worth your life. Misidentification is often fatal.

2 Quarts, pints, cups, tablespoons, teaspoons, and fl. oz. are as defined in US Customary Units, not to be confused with differing British imperial, "legal", "coffee", Commonwealth of Nations, Canadian, Latin American, Japanese, Russian, or Dutch definitions — further proof that everyone needs the metric system.

3 Tiger Lily Buds: These are the unopened flowers, each about 2-5" (5-13 cm) long, of the daylily plant (Hemerocallis fulva) also known as "golden lilies" and "tiger lilies", available dried in cellophane bags, in East Asian markets: huang hua in Mandarin. They lend a musky, sweet, and flowery flavour and aroma to soups, poultry, fish, or meat dishes, and should be washed, then rehydrated in warm water for 30-120 mins., before use. Store dry lily buds tightly wrapped in a dry location. They will keep almost indefinitely.

Foiling my overall policy of metrifying recipes, I cannot predict how many grams the ¼ cup called for would weigh, sorry.

4 "Corn starch" is powdered starch processed from the New World grain maize (from Spanish, orig. from Nahuatl), which grain the USA/Canada call "corn", unlike the rest of the English-speaking world, which reserves "corn" to mean cereal grains generically. This starch product, needed here in its customary role as a thickening agent, is called "corn starch" in the US/Canada, but "cornflour" in the UK and most other anglophone lands — not to be confused with whole maize grain: That product — not a thickening agent — is called "polenta", "corn meal", or "corn flour" in the US/Canada, depending on how finely milled, and called "maize flour" in the UK and most other places. Australians should beware that their "cornflour" is starch extracted from wheat kernel, sometimes more-helpfully labelled as "wheaten cornflour". As if that weren't confusing enough, the maize-based thickener may be labelled (in Australia) either as "corn flour" or as "corn starch", so beware. Further, the maize flour product, there, is labelled as "cornmeal".

Note that whole-maize grain is traditionally, in Meso-American cultures of origin, wisely soaked in alkaline solution ("nixtamalised") to increase bioavailability and thereby prevent niacin deficiency (pellagra), among other important benefits, yielding "masa" (lit. dough) aka "masa de maíz" (lit. maize dough), also available in dried & ground form as "masa harina" (lit. dough flour) aka "harina de maíz" (lit. maize flour), and in its unground form, hominy. As further complication, Americans distinguish "corn flour", meaning prepared from maize endosperm only, from "maize flour" for use of whole maize — the former, neutral-flavoured; the latter, much more nutritious.

Origin of the naming mess: Originally, North America shared with Mother England the language's original meaning of "corn" to mean cereal grains generically (from Old English "corn" meaning single seed of any cereal plant, orig. from Proto-Germanic "kurnam" meaning small seed). The colonists got the gift of maize from native peoples, therefore at first calling it "Indian corn". Later, in the USA and Canada, "Indian corn" got worn down to just "corn", while the original meaning of "corn" was lost, locally. "Maize" is thus now the least-ambiguous term in international contexts, though many Americans either don't know that word or reserve it for variants from Latin-American (and Spanish) cooking.

5 White Pepper is the same Piper nigrum berry seed as is sold as black pepper, except left to fully ripen, fermented in water, and the black outer coat removed. Accordingly, it has a milder flavour and lighter colour. Otherwise, one is a natural substitute for the other.

6 Fondue Pots: These Swiss-originate cooking appliances for melting cheese or chocolate over a "burner" were absurdly fashionable in the 1960s-70s; thus Chef Chu's comparison as a reference, which will probably be mystifying today. Each fondue set consisted of an enameled cast-iron pot to hold foods, an adjustable burner (running on alcohol or lighter fluid) to slide under it, and a set of 3-prong forks. What Chef Chu suggests, specifically, is a "candle coffee warmer", doing a similar job using candles, to keep coffee or tea warm.

Taken from: Lawrence C.C. Chu's classic cookbook Chef Chu's Distinctive Cuisine Of China, p. 115. published 1980 by Harper and Row, which can be checked out in scanned format at Internet Archive. Thank you! (Chu's the chef / restaurateur of beloved local restaurant Chef Chu's, in Los Altos, California.)

Collected and re-published at http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/recipes/mu-shu-pork.html by Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> on Oct. 4, 2026. Individual recipes are free from copyright. Share and enjoy!

(If I have any copyright title in my own very minor contributions to this page — not my intention — they were created in 2026 by Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> and licensed for use under CC0. I have thereby waived all copyright, compilation copyright, and related or neighbouring rights to this work. This work is published from: United States of America.)