京酱肉丝京醬肉絲
jīng jiàng ròu sī ging1 zoeng3 juk6 si1
Glossy ribbons of pork in dark, sweet-salty Beijing bean sauce, piled on a raft of raw scallion and rolled up in tofu skin like a little parcel. The "jing" is 京 — the capital itself — and the dish wears the city's name with pride.
The story behind it
京酱肉丝 is a classic of Beijing home and restaurant cooking, built around 甜面酱 (sweet fermented flour paste), the same brown sauce family that flavours Peking duck. The contrast is the whole point: hot savoury pork against cool crisp scallion and the soft, slightly chewy 豆腐皮 (tofu skin) wrapper, eaten in two bites. Some households wrap it in thin mandarin pancakes (荷叶饼) instead, a nod to the duck tradition it shares a sauce with.
Ingredients
- 300 g pork loin or tenderloin, cut into thin matchsticks
- 3 tbsp sweet bean sauce (甜面酱) + 1 tsp sugar
- 1 egg white + 1 tbsp cornstarch + 1 tbsp Shaoxing wine (for marinade)
- 3 spring onions, white parts shredded into fine strips
- 2 sheets tofu skin (豆腐皮), cut into squares — or 8 thin mandarin pancakes
- 1 tsp grated ginger; 2 tbsp neutral oil
Steps
- Toss the pork strips with egg white, cornstarch and wine; rest 15 minutes so they stay tender.
- Slacken the sweet bean sauce with the sugar and 2 tbsp water until pourable.
- Heat oil and stir-fry the pork over high heat just until it turns pale; lift out.
- Lower the heat, add ginger, then the sauce, and bubble until thick and glossy.
- Return the pork, tossing fast to coat every strand; turn out onto a bed of shredded scallion.
- At the table, lay pork and a few scallion strips on a tofu-skin square (or pancake) and roll into a parcel.