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Eight-treasure Dongpo Pork |
Read about the dish:
What better place to start than with Su Dongpo, the poet? The pork dish that still carried his name was probably the dish Sam found himself most frequently served when in Hangzhou. When it was right it was perfect in its way, the fat sweet and custard-soft. Chefs over the centuries had added the enhancements of soy sauce, wine, spring onions and ginger in the initial two hours of simmering, then removed the aromatics and bathed the pork in only its own juices for four hours of steaming. Correctly prepared, the dish was a triumph of you er bu ni, to taste of fat without being oily, paired with nong, the dense, meaty, concentrated flavor.
Sam had been thinking of a variation. Why not make the dish in eight-treasure-style, steaming it in a mold the same way one made the sweet rice pudding ba bao fan? He could pack the pork in with rice, lily buds, gingko buts, dates, cloud ear, dried tofu…he could put the braised pork on the bottom for steaming. So rich, though, as the rice soaked up the fat; too rich. Maybe he should dislodge the mold slightly, tip it an angle to drain the rendered fat before flipping it over onto a plate.
-from The Last Chinese Chef
Taste the Dish:
While dongpo pork – the basic dish named for the famous poet – is a staple of Chinese restaurants the world over, the eight-treasure version, in which dongpo pork forms the centerpiece of a steamed rice mold, is less often found. An excellent version is prepared by Lulu’s Bamboo House, a very good Shanghainese restaurant in L.A.’s San Gabriel Valley. Offered under the menu’s ‘Lulu’s Specialty’ section, the Chinese Ba Bao Dong Po Rou (lit. ‘eight-treasure dongpo pork’) is unfortunately translated as ‘Hangzhou-style steamed pork with eight ingredients glutnons (sic).’ Don’t let this stop you – try it, even though, if you’re an American wimp like me, you might lift off the fat layer on top of the pork and discard it. This dish arrives at the table having been steamed for some hours, so unlike most Chinese dishes it reheats extremely well. You can order it to go and take it home. When you are ready to serve remove from the refrigerator, carefully transfer the firm mold to a heatproof plate, position it in a steamer rack, and steam for about 30 minutes or until thoroughly reheated. Once reheated, the rice-mold is not as stable as when cold, so plan to serve it on the steamer-plate. It makes an exotic and delicious contribution to any potluck. Sometimes when I lunched at another place in the San Gabriel Valley, I used to stop by Lulu’s Bamboo House and pick up an order to go for this very purpose. But Lulu's has closed! Readers -- has anyone found another outstanding version of this dish in the San Gabriel Valley?
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