Wanzai Chopped Pork 万载剁肉

Wanzai Chopped Pork (万载剁肉) is a stir-fry of fresh local pork and fresh chillies from Wanzai County (万载县) in Yichun (宜春), Jiangxi. A 2025 feature on the Yichun Civilisation Network (宜春文明网) calls it a dish handed down for a century that grew out of home cooking, and reports that it was chosen for the top ten of the "My Favourite Hometown Stir-Fry" selection at a promotion of Jiangxi stir-fries.

How it is made

At daybreak, buyers at the market choose local black pork slaughtered that day, preferably from the front shoulder, where fat and lean are well balanced. The meat is chopped on the board. Slices of fat go into a warm wok first with a little water so that the fat renders out; the lean meat follows and is stir-fried until it changes colour, then hot stock and soy sauce go in. In a second wok the cook fries local fresh chillies and garlic cloves with the house seasoning, tips the pork in, mixes everything and finishes with green garlic shoots.

Flavour and texture

The finished dish comes to the table at once, in a coarse earthenware bowl: glossy red pork slices coated in a thick sauce. The first taste is of tender, juicy pork, followed by the heat of the fresh chillies, with the sharpness of garlic and the fresh note of the garlic shoots.

Where it comes from

The dish began as home cooking: pork served to guests in the old days, then "tiaotiao rou" (跳跳肉) at New Year and festivals. It began in the old market and took off in the early 2000s, when the Jinsanjiao (金三角) food market opened on the south side of town and chopped-pork restaurants filled the street one after another. In the restaurants of Wanzai's old town it is on every table. Yichun counts it among the dishes of its "Ten Counties, a Hundred Bowls" (十县百碗) food campaign.