North China Pork
Recipe from Lawrence C.C. Chu
This recipe comes from a region where garlic is plentiful, and even eaten as a snack, so be forewarned.
Yields:
8 servings
Time Required:
- 30 mins.
Ingredients:
- 1 lb. (0.45 kg) section of pork leg or butt, boned
Sauce
- 5 cloves garlic, minced or pressed1
- 1 tsp.2 (2 g) minced fresh ginger
- 1 green onion (white part), minced
- 1 Tbsp. (15 mL) Hot Chilli Oil (recipe below), or purchased
- ¼ cup (60 mL) soy sauce
- 1 tsp. (5 mL) red rice vinegar3
- 1 tsp. (4 g) sugar
- 1 tsp. (5 mL) sesame oil
- Salt to taste
- Chinese parsley (cilantro)
Preparation:
To boil, place pork in enough boiling water to cover and simmer for about 20 mins. or until done. Remove, cover, and refrigerate until cool.
Slice ⅛" (3 mm) -thick and refrigerate until serving. Combine SAUCE ingredients well.
To serve, arrange cold pork in overlapping slices on serving platter. Pour sauce over all to serve. Garnish with parsley.
Author's Notes
North China Pork can be served either hot or cold. If serving hot, steam slices of pork first, and then top with sauce.
It's much easier to slice meat — especially when the recipe calls for ⅛" (3 mm) -thick slices — if it's been refrigerated or partially frozen, first.
Hot Chilli Oil
Ingredients:
- 1 cup (235 mL) vegetable oil
- 3-4 dried chilli pods, crushed
Preparation:
Heat oil in a wok to 375°F (190°C). Remove from heat, and drop in chilli pieces. Allow oil to cool completely.
Author's Notes
You might want to enhance the flavour by adding a few slices of fresh ginger or onion.
If the oil is too hot, you will burn the chilli pods before the colour comes out. If it isn't hot enough, the flavour won't be strong enough.
1 Minced is better. Crushing vegetables breaks all of the constituent cellulose-rich cells' walls and has unfortunate consequences to the food's tastes, particularly in the case of garlic, the crushed paste of which easily becomes bitter, lacking flavour nuance, and sometimes picking up a metallic aftertaste.
So, think of this as your motivation to get a nice, really sharp 8" (20 cm) chef's knife for mincing (producing 1⁄16" = 1.5 mm cuts), and a good cutting board.
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 Chinese vinegar comes in three forms: Black Rice Vinegar is used with braised dishes and as a dipping sauce. Red Rice Vinegar is with sweet and pungent dishes and for dipping steamed crab. White Rice Vinegar is used for sweet and pungent dishes.
Taken from: Lawrence C.C. Chu's classic cookbook Chef Chu's Distinctive Cuisine Of China, p. 123. 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/north-china-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.)