Huizhou Layered One-Pot 徽州一品锅

How it is made

The ingredients are plain: pork belly, radish, green vegetables or spinach, hollow fried tofu puffs, plain tofu and duck eggs. Meat and vegetables go into the pot layer by layer and ring by ring, in the order their cooking needs, and the pot is said to have as many floors as it has ingredients, a play on the wish that guests rise one floor higher.

The vegetables that line the bottom of the pot change with the season. The top layer follows a fixed rule: pork, duck-egg dumplings and stuffed tofu parcels must sit on the surface, laid out in equal shares by the number of diners, usually two to four pieces each.

Flavour and texture

Because meat and vegetables cook together, their flavours pass into one another. The duck-egg dumplings and fried tofu parcels turn soft and hold broth, the pork is fatty without being greasy, and the vegetables at the bottom, simmered in all the juices above them, are said to taste all the better for it.

How it is eaten

Diners sit around the pot and follow set manners: take food from the part nearest you rather than reaching across, and eat from the top down without turning the layers over. Seating follows seniority.

The Jixi (绩溪) local-records office calls it one of the most representative traditional foods of Huizhou and an essential dish at important banquets, served at festivals, weddings and funerals. In the Lingbei (岭北) area of Jixi it is the main course on major holidays, and preparing several dozen pots can involve the whole village. It is also known as "Hu Shi One-Pot" (胡适一品锅), "Jixi One-Pot" (绩溪一品锅) and "reunion pot" (团圆锅).

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