Easy and homestyle pork and shiitake mushroom stir fry (香菇炒肉片).
This is one of the easy meat series. In Chinese cuisine, we love to stir fry all types of meat (pork, beef, chicken) with seasonal vegetables. You can find we have fresh peppers, wood ear mushrooms, onion, snow peas. This mushroom pork stir frying is also a national dish loved by many children. Although no extra spices and herbs are added, the dish is rich in flavor. The tender an juice meat with a faint aroma of shiitake mushroom is so appealing. If you are a mushroom lover, do not miss it.
Although it is quite simple, I highly recommend you reading the whole post and pay attention to the parts with colors. All the tips has been highlighted with different colors.
Ingredients you will need
- 200g pork butt or tenderloin, thinly sliced
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 1/2 tbsp. cooking wine
- 1/2 tbsp. oyster sauce
- 4 tbsp. water or chicken stock
- 1/4 tsp. white pepper
- 3 tsp. cornstarch
- 2 tsp. sesame oil
- cooking oil as needed
- 10 fresh shiitake mushrooms, remove the roots and sliced
- 1/2 tbsp. oyster sauce
- 1/2 tbsp. light soy sauce
- 4 scallions, cut into small sections white part and green part separated
- 1 garlic cloves, sliced
- 1/2 thumb ginger, skin removed and sliced
Instructions
1. Thinly slice the pork. Add salt, cooking wine, oyster sauce and water (or chicken stock) and white pepper. Grasp the pork slice for 2-3 minutes until all the juice is well absorbed. Then add cornstarch in. Set aside for 10 minutes. Add sesame oil just before frying.
Cooks Note about marinating
The most difficult part for meat stir frying is to marinating process. If the marinating is not well done, you will end up with dry, chewy and plaint pork slices after stir frying. To make the pork tender, we have two important steps.
- Add enough liquid to make the pork slices juicy themselves. So grasping is the key step. We need to make sure the liquid completely absorbed.
- Use cornstarch to form a protecting shell to prevent pork slices from loosing the liquid. And adding a small batch of cold oil can help them from sticky to the bottom of the wok.
2.Heat your wok or pan firstly. Add cooking oil to form a 2-3 cm high layer (do not be scared by the oil amount, we do not eat them all). Spread the pork sliced in when the oil begins to warm but not hot. Let them stay for around 5-8 seconds and then quickly fry them until turns pale. Transfer out immediately.
It is 100% ok to find there are some faint pink color inside the slices based on the following two reasons. Firstly the heat of the pork slices will continue cooking them (后热效应) and secondly they will be recooked in wok later. So do not overcook your pork slices. Transfer out as long as they turns pale.
3.Remove the extra oil and save them for vegetable stir fries. Keep around 1 tablespoon of oil and fry garlic, ginger and scallion until aromatic. Place shiitake mushroom in, add oyster sauce and light soy sauce. Fry for around 30 seconds until the shiitake mushrooms are just cooked.
4.Return scallion sections and pork slices in. Mix well and serve hot!
- 200 g pork butt or tenderloin , thinly sliced
- 1/4 tsp. salt , optional (you can skip this for a less salted dish)
- 1/2 tbsp. cooking wine
- 1/2 tbsp. oyster sauce
- 4 tbsp. water or chicken stock
- 1/4 tsp. white pepper
- 3 tsp. cornstarch
- 2 tsp. sesame oil
- cooking oil as needed
- 10 fresh shiitake mushrooms ,remove the roots and sliced
- 1/2 tbsp. oyster sauce
- 1/2 tbsp. light soy sauce
- 4 scallions ,cut into small sections white part and green part separated
- 1 garlic cloves ,sliced
- 1/2 thumb ginger ,skin removed and sliced
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Thinly slice the pork. Add salt (or skip salt if you want a less salted dish), cooking wine, oyster sauce and water (or chicken stock) and white pepper. Grasp the pork slice for 2-3 minutes until all the juice is well absorbed, then add cornstarch. Set aside for 10 minutes. Mix in sesame oil just before frying.
-
Heat your wok or pan firstly. Add cooking oil to form a 2-3 cm high layer (do not be scared by the oil amount, we do not eat them all). Spread the pork sliced in when the oil begins to warm but not hot. Let them stay for around 5-8 seconds and then quickly fry them until turns pale. Transfer out immediately.
-
Remove the extra oil and save them for vegetable stir fries. Keep around 1 tablespoon of oil and fry garlic, ginger and scallion until aromatic. Place shiitake mushroom in, add oyster sauce and light soy sauce. Fry for around 30 seconds until the shiitake mushrooms are just cooked.
-
Return scallion sections and pork slices in. Mix well and serve hot!
You can use either pork tenderloin or pork butt for this recipe. For a better texture, I recommend pork butt which is the best part for stir-frying in my mind. If you prefer a better shape of the dish, pork tenderloin is a better choice.
Hi, I’ve bought the Bullseye bbq sauce to make SchaCha beef stir fry and it has a lot of oil on top. I stirred it before using but the dish was still really oily. Should I pour off the oil that has separated before using it? Otherwise the stir fry was delicious. Can’t wait to make it again. All your recipes I’ve tried so far were great.
Gaby
Gaby, you can remove the oil and save it for noodles. And then add mushrooms and continue frying.
I wanted to write to you to tell you I LOVE YOUR BLOG!! I lived in Yunnan for 4 years (I am American) and I search and search for good Chinese food that reminds me of Kunming! When I found your blog, I was so happy. All of your food is the Chinese food I loved when I lived in China. There is nothing like it in the American city I live in now. I have made many of your recipes and am looking forward to trying this one. THANK YOU for sharing your amazing food with me! Stay well and stay safe!
Thanks Emily!! You are so sweet to give me such an encouraging comment! Made me feel quite needed! I will continue posting authentic Chinese recipes and hope you keep returning. Be well too.
Thank You, thank You, thank You! I am so glad I found You and this recipe which I added to my “Good meal” collection!
All my family (those who are pretty choosy) loved it at once which is sooo rare, as well as it is rare to find good chinese food recipes! It was good even with dried skiitake (in my place there is uneasy to get fresh shiitake) and it was really easy to make. God bless You :-))))))
You get it! Glad to know the family loves it too. This is my daughter’s favorite dish.
needs more vegetables
What is grasping.
Making a mix to make sure that everything is well combined.
I had the same question! I don’t really understand the answer given here for this question, and this term doesn’t appear to be explained anywhere online. I’m guessing that it’s using your hand(s) to mix the slurry/marinade all around each piece of meat as part of the “velveting” technique used in Chinese cooking. For English instructions, I think more attention needs to be applied to this word (“grasping”).
This is a great recipe, followed it closely n got a flavorful dish. ThankQ for sharing.
Thank you, Madelyn for your lovely feedback. Nice to hear it worked for you.
What do you mean by ‘grasping’ the pork?
Message to mix all the ingredients well mixed and attached to the pork slices.
This was delicious! I thought some of the instructions, times , didn’t make sense so winged it and it all worked out wonderfully! The pork was soooo tender and perfect flavor. I will be making this again. I will try more of these recipes for sure.
Thank you!
Thank you Sandy for your lovely feedback!!! You have just found the magic of tender stir frying. Go ahead and try your own creations.
This was really good. Added – 1. Store did not have fresh shiitake so reconstituted dry. Ok but fresh would have been better. 2. Had 1/3 head of Napa so added that. 3. Hubby likes snow peas so added some. Did the rest per the recipe. Will be making this again. Thanks for the recipe
Thank you Debbie for your lovely feedback!!! Great idea to add snow peas.