Shanghai fried rice with salt pork and green pak choy xian rou cai fan 咸肉菜饭

In a backstreet not far from Nanjing Road in the heart of Shanghai, there’s 4 dried shiitake mushrooms 2 tbsp cooking oil, preferably a small diner that serves one of the most ½ small red onion lard delicious versions of this classic local rice 100g streaky salt pork, 1 tbsp finely chopped dish I’ve tasted. The plump, glossy rice, pancetta or unsmoked fresh ginger studded with salt pork, threaded with the bacon 1 tsp sesame oil bright green of pak choy, is irresistible. 275g green pak choy Salt and ground white Everyone eats it, in the Chinese manner, (3–4 heads) pepper with a bowl of broth to refresh the palate 600g cooked and cooled (a simple stock with sliced spring onion sushi rice (300g when raw) greens will do). This is my version of their recipe, which includes red onion Cover the shiitake mushrooms in boiling water and leave to and shiitake mushrooms. This dish is soak for half an hour. Finely chop the onion. Remove any rind usually made with short-grain white rice from the pork and chop it into dice. Remove the mushroom – Japanese sushi rice is what I use at stalks and dice the caps. Chop the green pak choy a little more home – but it will also taste delicious coarsely than the other ingredients. Break the rice up into small with long-grain Thai fragrant rice. For clumps to make stir-frying easier. the most sizzlingly delicious results, use lard as your cooking oil. Feel free to Heat the cooking oil in a seasoned wok over a medium flame. vary the quantities of pork or vegetables Add the pork and onion and stir-fry gently until the onion is as you please. Spinach may be used as a tender and the pork has released its oil and is fragrant but not substitute for the pak choy. browned. Add the mushrooms and ginger, turn up the heat to Another traditional way to make this high and stir-fry briefly until fragrant. dish is to begin by frying the salt pork Tip in the rice and stir-fry over a high heat, breaking it up as and greens, preferably in lard, then add you go. When the rice is piping hot and smells delicious, season raw washed rice and water. Bring to the with salt and pepper. (If you are eating the rice as a main meal, boil, then cover and slow cook, as in the it will need to be saltier than if you are eating it with other recipe for plain white rice. dishes.) Add the pak choy and continue to stir-fry until the vegetable is piping hot and just cooked. Remove from the heat, stir in the sesame oil and serve.

Vegetarian version Vegetarians can simply omit the meat in either the main recipe or its variation to make simple cai fan (‘vegetable rice’) – although Chinese cooks would still tend to stir-fry the rice with lard to enhance its fragrance.

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