Steamed pork just sounds blah. But it is actually one of my favorite childhood dishes, which I think just needs a more exciting name. Like being named after a general, or maybe a province. As it stands, steamed pork tends to be a dish of Chinese home cooking. It’s rarely found in restaurants (I posit due to its less than stellar marketing), though I do remember one fantastic restaurant in Oakland Chinatown where we used to be able to get it when I was a kid. That place had the kind of Chinese food I always thought of as home cooking. Sadly the restaurant is gone now, but fortunately my grandma taught my mom who taught me how to whip up this super easy and delicious dish. I especially love the use of salted duck eggs to season and add body.

Guessipe

• 1 lb ground pork
• 4 oz water chestnuts, diced
• 2 Chinese sausages, sliced
• 2 TBSP rice wine
• 2 TBSP soy sauce
• 1 TBSP oyster sauce
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp corn starch
• 2 raw salted duck eggs

Combine all ingredients except the salted duck eggs in a steamer-safe bowl. Mix well. You can use ground turkey instead of ground pork. My parents have gotten extra healthy in their old age and swear you can’t tell the difference, but I think the pork is denser and prefer it.

Create two wells in the pork mixture and crack the salted duck eggs into them. Chop the yolk up with a fork.

Bring 1 inch of water to boil in a wok. Insert a wire steaming rack.

Place the dish of pork on the wire rack. Cover and steam by letting the water simmer 25 minutes.

Remove the dish from the wok and use a spoon to chop up the pork and eggs into bite size pieces. Steamed pork with salted duck egg is great because it tastes like you slaved over it, but really all you did was mix everything together in a bowl and then let it steam for a bit.