This pork dish is equally well known, and important, in Beijing,
Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou, and Guangzhou. It’s a particular
specialty of the Hakka, who are Han Chinese believed to have
migrated from northern China to southern China centuries ago. It
is called meicai kourou (or mui choi kau yuk in Cantonese) and
involves a two-method cooking process that calls for long-
cooking, or braising, followed by steaming in a wok. The cut
used is belly pork (fresh bacon), which is called wu hua rou (or
ng far yuk in Cantonese), literally “half meat, half fat.” When
it’s cooked, some remarkable kitchen chemistry occurs: the fat
appears to still be intact, but it has actually run out of the
pork into the braising liquid, and what is left is basically an
illusion. When you bite into it, it dissolves in the mouth, and
the flavors of the dish combine pleasantly. There’s even a
version of this dish called Dongpo rou, named for the celebrated
Hangzhoua poet Su Dongpo, active during the Northern Song
dynasty (960 to 1127). Th