Pork and Chicken Braise 猪肉勾鸡
Pork and Chicken Braise is featured among the local specialties of Inner Mongolia.
Pork and Chicken Braise (猪肉勾鸡) is a one-pot dish of the Hetao (河套) plain around Bayannur (巴彦淖尔), Inner Mongolia: pork belly, pork ribs and free-range chicken braised in a sugar-browned sauce with potatoes and tofu, with leavened bread cooked in the same pot. A feature on Hetao food published by the Inner Mongolia government lists it, as 'pork with free-range chicken' (猪肉勾笨鸡), first among the four 'big-pot' dishes of Hetao (河套四锅香).
How it is made
The regional recipe takes 400 g each of pork belly and pork ribs to 1 kg of free-range chicken. The pork is cut into 2.5 cm cubes and the chicken into 3.5 cm pieces. Sugar is heated in a hot wok until it turns yellow and foams, then the pork, chicken, star anise and Sichuan pepper are stir-fried in it to take on colour. Scallion, ginger, garlic, cooking wine, vinegar, soy sauce and salt go in next, followed by stock; the scum is skimmed once it boils.
The meat is braised over low heat for 40 minutes. Potatoes and tofu are then added, flat rounds of leavened dough are stuck onto the pot, and everything cooks under the lid for another 15 minutes. The breads are lifted out, shredded scallion is scattered over, and the dish goes to the table with the bread.
Wei Shuihua (魏水华), writing on Bayannur cooking in Hangzhou Daily (杭州日报), compares the method to Han Chinese red-braised pork (红烧肉): sugar is browned first, then pork belly is coloured and stewed, with the chicken added halfway through and green beans at the end. He writes that the 'gou' (勾) in the name comes from Mongolian and means to braise.
Flavour and texture
The Inner Mongolia government's feature describes the finished dish as glossy red, not fatty or greasy, and savoury with a slight sweetness; the meat is fragrant, the bread chewy, and meat, vegetables and bread come together in one dish.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer on 2026-09-24. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.