Food

Moo Shu, Now With Less Meat


Moo shu pork is a Northern Chinese dish from Shandong, popularized in the United States in the mid-20th century. My parents were introduced to it at Joyce Chen’s restaurant in Cambridge, Mass., where it had been served since 1958, alongside now-ubiquitous dishes like Peking duck, pan-fried dumplings (which she called “Peking ravioli” — a term you’ll still find on Boston-area menus), double-cooked pork and won-ton soup, among others.

The recipe for moo shu (or “moo shi,” as she calls it) pork in my parents’ copy of her now-long-out-of-print cookbook tracks closely with the traditional Shandong version. Eggs are fried until puffy (the name of the dish derives from muxi, the Chinese name for sweet osmanthus flowers, which the puffy eggs are said to resemble), then lightly marinated pork is stir-fried with wood ear mushrooms and day lily buds.

In Beijing, you may find the dish made with sliced cucumbers in place of day lily buds, whereas in the United States, variants of the dish with mung bean sprouts, carrots or green cabbage are not uncommon. The stir-fry itself is relatively mild, flavored only with soy sauce and wine, toasted sesame oil, a little white pepper and a hint of ginger. A paper-thin Mandarin pancake, brushed with sweet hoisin sauce and folded around the filling like a little burrito, gives it an adjustable punch of flavor.

I’ve been eating and making my own variant of the Chen recipe for years. It’s easy to make and, aside from the pork, uses ingredients I always have on hand. (I, like my parents, keep a stash of dried wood ears and day lilies in my pantry at all times. They last for years in a cool, dark pantry and are also a staple ingredient in hot and sour soup, another Chen dish I keep in regular rotation.) Over the years, aside from modifying a few ingredients, I’ve made a couple changes to her process. First, I’ve found that vigorously washing and draining sliced meat in water, followed by very roughly stirring it with marinade ingredients can significantly improve tenderness and marinade absorption. (This is true for any stir-fry!)

The other central difference is that I break down the stir-fry into several small batches, cooking one ingredient at a time, removing it to a bowl and allowing the wok to reheat before adding the next ingredient. This ensures that the wok maintains enough heat to properly sear and fry, as opposed to overloading it, which can lead to steamed meats and watery vegetables. This is a particularly useful technique if you, like me, are cursed with weak burners. I return all of the food to the wok for one final toss with the sauce just before serving.

Recently I found myself with a glut of mushrooms (which sometimes happens when I’m left unsupervised at the farmers’ market) and thought to myself that in addition to the fantastic alliteration, moo shu mushrooms would make a tasty variant. So I cut back on the amount of pork that a typical moo shu recipe calls for and replaced it with a big pile of mixed mushrooms that I stir-fried until browned and slightly crispy around the edges. (We’re after moo shu mushrooms after all, not mushy mushrooms.)

As for the pancakes, they are surprisingly simple, incredibly satisfying and a little bit magical to make at home. There’s a clever trick: stacking two disks of dough with a thin layer of sesame oil in between as you roll out and cook them on a hot griddle or dry skillet. While still hot, you peel the disks apart, giving you two soft, paper-thin pancakes that smell faintly of sesame oil.

Or you can do what many strip-mall Chinese restaurants do: Serve the stir-fry with warm flour tortillas. Even the best-quality flour tortilla is going to be thicker than a Mandarin pancake, but it’ll still work just fine.



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