Dong Sour-Cured Pork 侗家腌肉
Dong Sour-Cured Pork is featured among the local specialties of Guizhou.
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Dong Sour-Cured Pork (侗家腌肉) is pork cured in a wooden barrel with glutinous rice, chilli and salt by the Dong (侗族) people of Qiandongnan (黔东南), Guizhou. The Liping county (黎平县) government lists it with pickled fish, sour cucumber and sour radish among the sour foods of Dong households, who have a saying that they eat nothing without sourness (吃不离酸).
How it is made
According to Qiandongnan News Net (黔东南新闻网), the best time to cure pork runs from the eleventh month of the lunar calendar to the first month of the next year, and the work must be done about ten days before the Beginning of Spring (立春). The skin is first seared with a red-hot iron plate, scraped and washed, then rinsed in water used to wash rice. The meat is cut into chunks or strips and soaked in salt for three or four days before it goes into the curing barrel.
From there the seasoning and method are the same as for Dong pickled fish: steamed glutinous rice is cooled and mixed with chilli powder, Sichuan pepper and salt, or with sweet rice wine made from glutinous rice, which gives a sweeter result. Meat and rice go into a wooden barrel in alternate layers, a stone is set on top and the mouth of the barrel is sealed with oiled paper.
Where it comes from
A Popular Science Times (科普时报) feature on Dong food notes that Dong cooks sour-cure fish, pork, beef, chicken and duck alike. In Qiandongnan, a tourism route published on the Shibing county (施秉县) government portal puts Dong Sour-Cured Pork among the foods to try and the local goods to take home on a route through the Dong villages of Liping and Congjiang (从江) centred on Zhaoxing (肇兴).
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer on 2026-09-26. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.