Moo shu pork

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Moo shu pork
Traditional Chinese or
Simplified Chinese or

Moo shu pork or mu shu (Chinese: 木须肉), originally spelled moo shi pork (Chinese: 木樨肉) is a dish of northern Chinese origin, originating from Shandong. It invariably contains egg, whose yellow color is reminiscent of blossoms of the osmanthus tree, after which the dish is named.[1]

Sweet Osmanthus blossoms
Blossoms of the sweet osmanthus tree

Description[edit]

Chinese[edit]

In its traditional Chinese version, moo shu pork consists of sliced pork tenderloin, cucumber, and scrambled eggs, stir-fried in lard[2][3] together with bite-sized cuttings of wood ear mushrooms (black fungus) and enoki mushrooms. Historically the original dish in Shandong cuisine contained bamboo shoots. It was adapted into Beijing cuisine replacing bamboo with crunchy daylily blossoms. When home-cooked either may be replaced with cucumber. The dish is seasoned with minced ginger and garlic, scallions, soy sauce, and rice cooking wine (usually huangjiu). The dish is traditionally eaten by itself.

American Chinese[edit]

The dish is prepared with julienned pork, cabbage, scrambled egg, carrots, and wood ear mushrooms (black fungus). Hoisin sauce is painted on the inside of a thin flour-and-water pancake, or recently, sometimes, a Mexican tortilla,[4] which is then used to wrap the filling.

In the United States, the dish seems to have appeared in Chinese restaurants in New York City and Washington, D.C., in approximately 1966, receiving mention in a New York Times guide to Washington restaurants published that year.[5] One of the first restaurants in Manhattan to serve the dish was Pearl's, one of the best known New York City Chinese restaurants to serve non-Cantonese food in the 1960s.[6] A 1967 article in The New York Times states that another of the first restaurateurs to serve the dish in Manhattan was Emily Kwoh, the owner of the Mandarin House, Mandarin East, and Great Shanghai restaurants.[7]

American-style moo shu pork, with pancakes, ready to wrap
American-style moo shu pork, wrapped in pancakes

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Moo Shu Pork, Beijing-Style - How to Make the Original Moo Shu Pork". YouTube. Retrieved Jan 1, 2022.
  2. ^ "木须肉的做法_木须肉怎么做_木须肉的家常做法【心食谱】". www.xinshipu.com. Retrieved 2021-03-10.
  3. ^ "健康家常的木须肉". www.xiachufang.com. Retrieved 2021-03-10.
  4. ^ "Moo Shu Pork, Cantonese Style (木须肉): Chef Daddy Lau teaches us how to make Moo Shu Pork". YouTube. Retrieved Jan 1, 2022.
  5. ^ Washington: The New York Times Guide to the Nation's Capital, by Alvin Shuster (R. B. Luce, 1967, p. 268).
  6. ^ Fashionable Food: Seven Decades of Food Fads, by Sylvia Lovegren (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005, p. 26).
  7. ^ "No Matter How You Spell It, It's Still Mo-Shu-Ro," by Craig Claiborne (The New York Times, November 2, 1967).