Jinan Suguo Layered Braised Pot 济南酥锅
Jinan Suguo Layered Braised Pot is featured among the local specialties of Shandong.
Jinan Suguo Layered Braised Pot (济南酥锅) layers fish, meat, lotus root and kelp between cabbage leaves, cooking them until tender in a sour, salty and sweet sauce. It is a winter household dish associated with Jinan’s (济南) New Year meals.
How it is made
Chef Cheng Kai (程锎), interviewed by Qilu Evening News in 2017, starts with a rack or a large bone to keep food off the pot bottom. Spring onion, ginger, garlic and baizhi (白芷) provide aromatics. He stacks the ingredients in two to four layers, depending on the pot, separating them with cabbage and covering the top with more leaves.
His seasoning ratio is three parts vinegar to two parts sugar and one part soy sauce, with a little salt and cooking wine. After bringing the pot to a boil, he simmers it for forty minutes to an hour, then leaves it covered off the heat for at least two hours.
How it is eaten
The food is lifted out layer by layer, cut for serving, and finished with sesame oil and some cooking liquid. The finished combination is fragrant and thoroughly tender, with the vinegar, salt and sugar all apparent.
Where it comes from
Qilu Evening News traces the dish from Boshan (博山) to Jinan. Cheng associates the Jinan tradition with Beiyuan lotus root (北园), Luokou vinegar (泺口), Tangwang cabbage (唐王) and Yellow River fish. Families made it as winter vegetables arrived, then prepared a particularly generous pot for the New Year.
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.