China · Chinese

Stir-fried cucumber with yellow bean sauce

Young cucumber cut into dice and salted to draw off its water, stir-fried with diced lean pork and seasoned with yellow bean sauce, scallion, ginger and Shaoxing wine, the glaze coating both dice — the spring member of the Qing court’s “four sauces”. The Kongfu roll heads its “four quick stir-fries” with it, as “stir-fried cucumber sauce”. The water the cucumber gives up under salt must be poured off, or the sauce thins and the dish turns watery. Public reference · home adaptation, not a historical original.

32 minutes · 4 servings · Moderate

Stir-fried cucumber with yellow bean sauce

Public reference · Home adaptation Stir-fried cucumber sauce is the spring member of the Qing court’s “four sauces” — cucumber in spring, pea in summer, carrot in autumn and hazelnut in winter, rotating through the year. Per the recipe database, it grew out of the Manchu custom of eating raw vegetables with raw sauce; unwilling to see the empress dowager live on uncooked sauce dishes, the imperial cooks changed the mixing into frying, and the “four sauces” followed. The Kongfu roll heads its “four quick stir-fries” with this dish, alongside mashed tofu, dried tofu with celery and chunyan shoots with egg — four seasonal quick stir-fries set against the whole-dish courses. Kongfu cooking insists on eating in season, and giving tender spring cucumber a slot of its own is that principle in action. Only the technique is used here, not the heat-clearing or anti-inflammatory claims that circulate about cucumber. **The roll records dish names only, never methods; the technique here comes from public material on chao huangguajiang.** The recipe-database entry carries a double identity: it appears in the *Kongfu Archives* among the dishes presented at the Guangxu 20th-year, 10th-month, 4th-day birthday banquet for Cixi’s sixtieth, and again in the informal imperial kitchen’s breakfast for Puyi in the 3rd year of Xuantong — so the dish stood in both the Kongfu mansion and the inner court, not merely in folk cooking. Quantities are scaled from the original (200 g cucumber, 150 g lean pork) up to 300 g and 200 g for four servings, with seasonings converted proportionally. **Yellow bean sauce is a fermented soy condiment, but the dish also contains lean pork and lard, so it is filed as a meat dish under this project’s taxonomy.** Heat control is the whole dish: the pork must first be fried hard over high heat until it gives up its water, dropped to low heat as the sizzling rises, then returned to high heat once the sizzling fades and the colour goes from dark to light — only then does the sauce cook through without scorching. The cucumber goes in last and only briefly; cooked longer it softens and loses its crunch. The starch is loosened before thickening, so the dish is lightly glazed rather than sauced. All weights and times are editorial and untested. Contains lean pork and soya (yellow bean sauce, soy sauce), plus Shaoxing wine (alcohol) and sesame (sesame oil). The yellow bean sauce is itself a soy product and must be replaced if soy is to be avoided. 中华书局上海聚珍：真正的“孔府宴”吃些什么？ — The hereditary Kongfu roll reads “four quick stir-fries: stir-fried cucumber sauce, mashed tofu, dried tofu with celery, chunyan shoots with egg”. This is the slot evidence for this entry and shows the dish is recorded as “stir-fried cucumber sauce”. The page introduces the roll with “it is said” — a hereditary list, not an archival original, and it records names only, never methods. https://applet.10100.com/article/106509520 名菜网：炒黄瓜酱 — The source of the method used here. It gives a double archival identity: the dish appears in the *Kongfu Archives* among the two banquet tables presented on the 4th day of the 10th month of Guangxu 20 by the mother and wife of the 76th-generation Duke Kong Lingyi, for Cixi’s “sixtieth birthday”; and again in the informal imperial kitchen’s breakfast for Puyi on the 7th day of the 9th month of the 3rd year of Xuantong. It also notes that the marker of seasonality was the first tender cucumber of spring. The method given matches this entry: cucumber peeled, cut into dice, salted to draw off its water; lean pork cut to the same dice and marinated half an hour in soy sauce and wine; pork fried until its water comes out and the sizzling rises, dropped to low heat, returned to high heat until the colour lightens; scallion, ginger and loosened yellow bean sauce fried through; cucumber added and tossed through; thickened with cornstarch and finished with sesame oil. https://www.mcw99.com/caipuwz/showcaipu.asp?id=18950 名菜网：炒黄瓜酱（另一条工艺要诀） — The craft notes: spring cucumber is the right choice, tender and fine-flavoured; the stir-fry must be kept moving throughout, and if the pan threatens to dry a little stock or water may be added. Steps 8 and 9 follow this. https://www.mcw99.com/caipuwz/showcaipu.asp?id=1878 AI-generated illustration; not kitchen-tested.

Ingredients

  • young cucumber300 g
  • lean pork, preferably rump200 g
  • yellow bean sauce, loosened20 g
  • light soy sauce8 g
  • fine salt2 g
  • Shaoxing wine20 ml
  • finely chopped scallion5 g
  • finely chopped ginger5 g
  • monosodium glutamate2 g
  • chicken bouillon powder3 g
  • salad oil40 ml
  • cornstarch slurry10 g
  • sesame oil6 ml

Directions

  1. 1

    Wash the cucumber and use the less seedy tail end, cutting it into about 7 mm dice. Toss with salt and stand about 3 minutes to draw out the water, then pour the liquid away.

  2. 2

    Cut the lean pork into dice of the same size and marinate about 30 minutes in a little soy sauce and Shaoxing wine.

  3. 3

    Have the chopped scallion and ginger ready; loosen the yellow bean sauce with water; mix the cornstarch with water into a pourable thin slurry.

  4. 4

    Heat the wok over high heat, add the oil and the pork dice, and fry them. When the water in the meat comes out and the sizzling grows loud, move the pan down to a gentle heat.

  5. 5

    Once the water in the meat is gone and the sizzling quiets, return the pan to high heat and fry 3–4 minutes until the colour of the meat lightens.

  6. 6

    Add the scallion and ginger and stir briefly, then add the yellow bean sauce, soy sauce, wine, MSG and bouillon and fry through until the sauce smells out and coats the pork completely.

  7. 7

    Add the drained cucumber dice, turn to high heat and toss quickly just until heated through — do not cook it long.

  8. 8

    Drizzle in the loosened cornstarch slurry to make a light glaze, tossing so it coats both the pork and the cucumber thinly.

  9. 9

    Add the sesame oil, toss to combine and serve straight away.

Source: WorldBite · public-reference adaptation · Source-attributed editorial adaptation; AI illustration; not an authenticated original recipe.