CROSSING THE BRIDGE
Home-style stir-fried pork with garlic chives
SERVES 4
“This dish of stir-fried pork with spring onions, dried chillies and Sichuan peppercorns is an everyday recipe, one of the easiest, most basic dishes you’ll find in Yunnan,” says Georgia Freedman. “Every cook in the province makes a version, and each has his or her own way of flavouring it. Most recipes call for large local spring onions (da cong), but some cooks in central and eastern Yunnan use long pieces of fragrant garlic chives. This version uses both, and the combination is utterly delicious.”
340 gm lean pork, such as boneless chop
1 tbsp light soy sauce
¼ tsp dark soy sauce
60 ml (¼ cup) vegetable oil
1 tbsp thinly sliced ginger
4 dried small chillies
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2 tsp whole Sichuan peppercorns
5 large spring onions, cut into 3.5cm lengths
2 tbsp garlic chives cut into 3.5cm lengths
1 Cut pork into very thin slices with a sharp knife. If the slices are more than 1cm thick, cut them in half lengthways to make long, thin pieces. Mix pork with soy sauces in a small bowl and leave to marinate for 5 minutes.
Heat oil in a wok over high heat until very hot. Add ginger, chillies, garlic and Sichuan peppercorns and stir once or twice. Add pork and stir-fry, stirring and flipping frequently, until the meat is just cooked through (3 minutes). Add spring onion and garlic chive and stir-fry until spring onion starts to wilt (about 1 minute). (If not working over flame, press pork and
