Hakka twice-cooked pork belly — slices arranged over a bed of caramelized preserved mustard greens (mei cai), then steamed 2+ hours until the fat melts to silk. The Hakka funeral-feast plate and Lunar New Year heirloom.
Hakka migration cooking — preserved mustard greens travel well, and the dish makes the most of pork belly's high fat content by rendering it slowly. Hsinchu's traditional Hakka restaurants serve it on lacquered plates as the meal's centerpiece.
Glassy fat melts on the tongue while lean stays meaty; the sweet-salty-smoky mei cai underneath cuts every rich bite. Served over plain rice to soak the juice.
Boiling pre-renders surface fat; deep-frying creates blistered skin texture; 2-hour steam dissolves intramuscular fat into the lean. Mei cai's salt-sweet caramel cuts the pork's richness through both contact and aroma.
Variations
Cantonese version (mui choi kau yuk) uses lighter mei cai and dark soy; Hakka uses sweeter mei cai. Vegetarian temple version replaces pork with eggplant.
On the Palate
Where Mei Cai Kou Rou sits in the Taiwanese flavor cloud
The two hours of steaming is the whole dish — that's when the pork belly's fat melts into the lean and the mei cai's salt-sweet juices soak up through the meat. Rush it and you get chewy, greasy slices instead of meltingly tender ones.
Ingredients
Serves 6
How it's made
8 steps · 50 min active + 2 hours 40 min waiting
- 140 min
Boil 1 kg pork belly skin-on 30 min; cool, pat dry, prick skin all over.
- 28 min
Rub skin with dark soy + 1 tsp salt; deep-fry skin-side-down in 180 °C oil 4 min until blistered.
Watch outThe skin is ready when it blisters up crackly and bubbled in the hot oil — that texture is what softens into silk after steaming.
- 35 min
Slice cooled belly into 0.5 cm thick rectangles.
- 45 min
Rinse 200 g mei cai (preserved mustard) thoroughly; chop fine.
- 58 min
Sauté mei cai with 4 garlic cloves + 2 tbsp brown sugar + 3 tbsp Shaoxing wine 8 min.
- 68 min
Arrange pork slices fat-side-down in bowl; press mei cai on top; cover with bowl.
Watch outPack the pork fat-side-down against the bowl so the melting fat bastes the meat from below as it steams.
- 7120 min
Steam 2 hours over boiling water.
Watch outAfter two hours the slices should look glassy and slumped, the fat gone translucent — that's fully rendered.
- 83 min
Invert bowl onto serving plate; pork on top, mei cai cascade below.
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