Steamed mince pork with eggs

This recipe is adapted from Fuschia Dunlop's Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook: recipes from Hunan province. Dunlop is a British food writer who's made her name by collecting and translating recipes from China, particularly Sichuan province, acting as a kind of cultural ambassador.

She's also the author of a really entertaining, funny memoir, Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper, which follows her experiences as a exchange student in Chengdu, her impromptu enrolment in a local cooking school, and her subsequent adventures.

I saw her speaking once at the Sydney Food Festival in 2009, where she presented with and translated on behalf of husband-and-wife chefs Yu Bo and Dai Shuang of the unassumingly named but culinarily ambitious Yu's Family Kitchen in Chengdu, Sichuan. Some dishes in their demonstration:


16 dishes by Yu Bo and Dai Shuang, each illustrating a different flavour and technique.


Dai Shuang's hedgehogs. Tiny dough hedgies filled with red bean paste; their eyes are black sesame seeds. Each is hand made, with the 137 spikes of each hedgie individually snipped with a pair of embroidery scissors (and yes, she counted each spike in her demonstration!).


Yu Bo's playful 'calligraphy' set. The brush tips are pastry with a soft filling and the red wax is tomato paste. Dip the brush and eat!


And now to a much much humbler offering:



Steamed minced pork with eggs

4 medium or 10-12 small dried shittake mushrooms
A small piece of fresh ginger, unpeeled
300g minced pork
1 tsp sesame oil
200-250 ml or less of chicken stock
3 or 4 eggs
Salt and pepper
2 spring onions finely sliced

Soak the mushrooms in boiling water, leave for 30 minutes. Crush ginger with flat of a cleaver and place in a cup with a little cold water to cover.

Place the pork in a mixing bowl. Drain and finely chop the shittake (retaining mushroom water) and add to the pork. Add 3 tablespoons of the ginger soaking water, some of the ginger finely chopped, sesame oil, salt and pepper. Mix well.

Stir in the stock and mushroom water, a little at a time to allow meat to absorb, until you have a loose paste.

Pour the pork paste into a shallow bowl. Break the eggs over the pork (I did these whole, as suggested by Dunlop, but on consideration I would suggest beating them first). Place the bowl in a steamer and steam over high heat for 15 minutes until pork is cooked through.

Serve with scattering of spring onions.

Adapted from "Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook: recipes from Hunan province" by Fuschia Dunlop