🍽️ Shaoxing Preserved Mustard Pork

Preserved mustard absorbs fat, pork melts.

Shaoxing Preserved Mustard Pork is a celebrated steamed dish of Shaoxing, Zhejiang, the famed rice-wine town. Pork belly is boiled, scored and sliced skin-side down in a bowl, then heaped with Shaoxing's own dried preserved mustard greens, seasoned with soy sauce, huangjiu wine and sugar, and steamed for hours. Turned out upside down at the table, the meat is glossy red, fatty and meltingly tender, while the greens have absorbed every drop of savory fat, becoming concentrated and fragrant. Long steaming is the secret. This dish anchors Shaoxing banquets; the earthy, aged greens cut the richness of the pork, making it an irresistibly rice-friendly taste of home.