Yu Xiang sauce is great for lots of ingredients but the most popular match is eggplants and shredded pork. It is quite interesting that Yu Xiang dish is quite different even in Sichuan area. The upper river area including Chengdu love to add shredded lettuce stem, wood ear mushrooms and carrot. But the lower river area including Chongqing love to use only scallion or yellow scallion and skip all the other side ingredients. I introduce my hometown style and use only scallions this time with a friendly to beginner method.
Step 1
Some of the traditional cook use only pickled peppers in Yu Xiang sauce. But I find adding some doubanjiang can improve the color of the dish to the next level.
Step 2
add light soy sauce, salt, sugar and white pepper. Mix well and set aside for 15 minutes. With this process, the pork shreds can obtain a basic flavor. At the same time, soak slices of ginger and scallion in a bowl with 2-3 tablespoons of warm water. Then pour around 2 tablespoons of ginger and scallion water to the pork shreds. Continue mixing and then you will find the water is absorbed.
Mix 1 tablespoon of starch with 1 tablespoon of water. Add to the pork shreds.
Step 3
Before stir frying, mix around 3 tablespoons of oil with the shreds to avoid them sticky together with the help of starch. Meanwhile this step make sure the pork shreds are fried with cold oil in hot wok
Step 4
Heat the wok firstly and then pour a small amount of oil to coat the wok. Place pork shreds in. Let it stay for 2-3 seconds and then mix from time to time. Once the pork shreds changes color. Transfer out. You may find this step is unnecessary for restaurants because they get super high fire and the dish can be finished within seconds. I recommend this step for home cooking with smaller fire. But we can get very close result.
Step 5
Leave the oil in and then place doubanjiang and pickled peppers in. Fry over small fire for 10 seconds until the oil turns red completely. Add garlic and ginger. Fry until aromatic.
Step 6
Return pork shreds and re-stir the Yu Xiang Sauce. Pour the sauce to the wok and heat for a while until the content boils. Then place the scallions in. Mix well.
