Shredded pork filet with celery (Qincai Lijisi) is a very common dish many of us have known, but replacing celery with cilantro, or "Chinese parsley" to make it Yuanbao Lijisi is a little different. Cilantro, which is more commonly used as a minor ingredient in both cold and hot Chinese dishes, here is used as one of the two major ingredients in Chef Wu Jiang's Yuanbao Lijisi dish. Wu is the chef of Simple House Lu Cuisine Restaurant at Hotel Kunlun, and started cooking Lu cuisine since 1994.

"Yuan refers to cilantro, the method of Yuanbao (bao means quick-fry) is popular in many Lu dishes, along with Hongshao (braising in brown sauce) and Dun (stewing)," Jiang said. "Lu cuisine features rich gravy taste and also the mastering of fire, and you will get this while I am cooking the Yuanbao Lijisi dish."

Ingredients:

400 grams pork filet

¼ tsp salt

1 tsp corn starch

1 tsp ginger, julienned

half cup of cooking oil

200 grams of cilantro

1 tsp spring onion, julienned

1 clove garlic, thinly sliced

½tsp sesame oil

½tsp vinegar

black pepper garlic

1. First, cut the pork into thin strips. Julienning meat takes practice, but Chef Wu demonstrated by first cutting the filet into thin slices, stacking the slices, then slicing the slices into, long, thin strips.

2. Marinate the pork with the salt, starch, 1 tsp of the julienned ginger, and 1 or 2 tablespoons of water. The ginger is quite necessary to enrich the taste, Wu advised.

3. Remove the cilantro leaves, and cut the stems into three-centimeter pieces.

4. On a high flame, heat the half cup of oil in a walk for 30 seconds, quickly fry the pork until it changes color, about 20 seconds. Remove the pork and set aside. Pour away the rest of the oil, what remains in the pan is enough for the stir fry.

5. Mix garlic pieces, the cut cilantro, and the spring onion together, dress with little sesame oil and vinegar. Use chopsticks to mix them a bit.

6. Over a very hot flame, stir fry the pork and the mixed vegetables together as fast as you can for no more than 30 to keep the cilantro fresh and crispy, also adding a little black pepper to finish.

We tried the finished dish that is cooked out in under 10 minutes. As Wu said, it was quite a rich taste, with well-balanced salty, sour and spicy taste.

"It's a three-part balance, with vinegar, salt and pepper," Wu explained.