锅包肉鍋包肉
guō bāo ròu wo1 baau1 juk6
Harbin’s crackling sweet-and-sour pork: thick slices in a glassy potato-starch crust, doused in hot syrupy vinegar. Invented around 1907 by a banquet chef adapting a salty Beijing dish for Russian guests with a sweet tooth.
The story behind it
Chef Zheng Xingwen of Harbin’s Daotai Fu (the city governor’s kitchen) reworked 焦炒肉片 for the Russian diplomats who filled the railway city — they wanted sweet and sour, and the “pot-wrapped meat” he served became the Northeast’s signature dish. Every 东北菜 restaurant is judged on it, and Harbin and Liaoning still argue over ketchup in the modern Liaoning variant (orthodox Harbin style uses none).
Ingredients
- 400 g pork loin, cut into 4 mm slices
- 120 g potato starch + water (a thick settling batter)
- Sauce: 3 tbsp sugar, 3 tbsp rice vinegar, 1 tsp soy sauce
- Ginger and spring onion in fine threads, plus coriander
- Oil for deep-frying
Steps
- Coat the pork slices in the thick starch batter.
- Deep-fry at 160 °C until set; rest, then re-fry hot until golden and crisp.
- Heat the sauce in a wok until it bubbles thick.
- Toss the pork through with the ginger threads for seconds only — crust must stay crackly.