A Yangzhou banquet classic: a whole pig's head, boned out but kept intact in shape, slow-braised in soy, rock sugar, and Shaoxing wine to a glossy sauce-red, the skin gelatinous and the meat soft as tofu, rich yet not greasy.
Braised pig's head was already a popular Yangzhou dish in the Qing dynasty, where serving a whole head to guests had become a local custom. It is one of the city's celebrated "three heads," alongside braised silver-carp head and crab-roe lion's-head meatballs; in 2018 the Yangzhou Cuisine Association issued a group standard codifying the "Three Heads Banquet." The dish is traditionally traced to monk-cooks at Fahai Temple by Slender West Lake. Xu Ke's Qing-era anecdote collection Qingbai Leichao records the temple's braised pig's head as "extremely rich in flavor, peerlessly clean," with the meat so tender it "rises with the chopsticks," and the essayist Zhu Ziqing recalled the temple's red-braised pig's head in his piece Summer in Yangzhou.
The whole head arrives reassembled and glistening sauce-red — tongue underneath, cheek, ear, and the face laid back in place. The skin is gelatinous and yielding, the fat melts away rather than coating the mouth, and the meat pulls apart at a touch of the chopsticks. The flavor is deep soy-savory rounded by sweetness, fragrant but never cloying or greasy.
The craft is in two stages. First the head is boned out — skull, brain, lymph nodes, eyelashes, and tongue membrane all removed — while the skin and face are kept whole, so it can be braised and re-laid intact. Then it is braised low and slow for hours over a bamboo grate (which keeps the skin off the scorching pot bottom) with soy, Shaoxing wine, rock sugar, vinegar, and a spice bag. The long gentle simmer hydrolyzes the head's abundant collagen into gelatin, giving the glossy, sticky skin and fall-apart meat; a hard rolling boil would tear the skin and turn the fat coarse, so it must barely tremble. The rock sugar both deepens the sauce-red color and balances the soy's salt, while the protracted braise renders out fat so the result is rich rather than greasy.
Variations
As one of the Yangzhou "three heads," it anchors the Three Heads Banquet beside braised silver-carp head and crab-roe lion's-head. The canonical form is the soy-and-sugar red braise served as a whole, reassembled head; in everyday cooking it is often portioned — cheek, ear, and tongue braised separately — and some kitchens favor a heavier rock-sugar gloss for a redder, sweeter face.
On the Palate
Where Braised Whole Pig's Head sits in the Chinese flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 8
How it's made
6 steps · 2 hours 30 min
- 1125 min
Place the pig's head face-down and split it from the back of the skull; remove the bones and brain, then soak in cold water about 2 hours to draw out the blood.
- 230 min
Blanch in boiling water about 20 minutes, lift out, and scrape clean — remove eyelashes, eyeballs, lymph nodes, and the tongue membrane; detach the ears, cheeks, and tongue.
Watch outScrape the blanched head truly clean — eyelashes, eyeballs, lymph nodes and tongue membrane all off — any missed bit brings off-flavor to the finished dish.
- 35 min
Line a pot with a bamboo grate and a bed of ginger slices and scallion knots so the skin will not touch the bottom.
- 410 min
Lay in the head and trimmings, add soy sauce, rock sugar, Shaoxing wine, a splash of vinegar, a spice bag, and water just to cover.
- 5125 min
Bring to a hard boil over high heat, then lower to a bare simmer and braise, covered, about 2 hours, until the liquid is syrupy and the meat is tender.
Watch outBring to a hard boil, then drop to a bare simmer for two hours — a rolling boil tears the skin and coarsens the fat; only a gentle braise turns the collagen to glossy, sticky gelatin.
- 610 min
Reassemble on a platter — tongue underneath, face and cheeks back in place, ears and trimmings in position — and spoon the reduced sauce over to glaze.
Archive tool suggestions — not reviewed
These legacy suggestions have not been evidence-reviewed and are not presented as required tools.
