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''Lo bah png'' (), as known as minced pork rice, is a rice dish that is commonly seen throughout
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
and
Southern Fujian
Minnan, Banlam or Minnan Golden Triangle (), refers to the coastal region in Southern Fujian Province, China, which includes the prefecture-level cities of Xiamen, Quanzhou and Zhangzhou. The region accounts for 40 percent of the GDP of Fujian Pro ...
. The flavor may vary from one region to another, but the basic ingredients remain the same: ground pork marinated and boiled in soy sauce served on top of steamed rice. It is a type of
gaifan dish.
Etymology
According to
Shuowen Jiezi
''Shuowen Jiezi'' () is an ancient Chinese dictionary from the Han dynasty. Although not the first comprehensive Chinese character dictionary (the ''Erya'' predates it), it was the first to analyze the structure of the characters and to give t ...
(說文解字, Explaining Simple and Analyzing Compound Characters), the word "Lu (滷)" has the closest meaning to "cooking in thick broth or sauce." This gives the term "滷肉飯" the direct meaning of "rice with braised meat."
However, for several decades, many Taiwanese people have used the
homophone
A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same (to varying extent) as another word but differs in meaning. A ''homophone'' may also differ in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (p ...
"魯" instead of "滷". Although people still use the original character in China, "魯肉飯" has become the most common name seen in Taiwanese restaurants and street vendors. 魯 is the ancient name for the Chinese province of
Shandong, which led the
Michelin Green Guide Taiwan to write in April 2011 that minced pork rice originated from Shandong. This confusion then led to a fierce debate in which most Taiwanese insisted that minced pork rice was in reality a true symbol of Taiwan, while others viewed it as a Chinese dish that caught on in Taiwan.
Preparation
As the origin of the flavor, the sauce is the key to making minced pork rice. The most popular way of preparation seen in Taiwan is stir-frying the
ground meat
Ground meat, called mince or minced meat outside North America, is meat finely chopped by a meat grinder or a chopping knife. A common type of ground meat is ground beef, but many other types of meats are prepared in a similar fashion, incl ...
with sliced
shallot
The shallot is a botanical variety (a cultivar) of the onion. Until 2010, the (French red) shallot was classified as a separate species, ''Allium ascalonicum''. The taxon was synonymized with '' Allium cepa'' (the common onion) in 2010, as the ...
in oil, and then boiling it in soy sauce. In the frying process, one may customize the flavor by adding seasonings such as
sugar,
rice wine,
pepper
Pepper or peppers may refer to:
Food and spice
* Piperaceae or the pepper family, a large family of flowering plant
** Black pepper
* ''Capsicum'' or pepper, a genus of flowering plants in the nightshade family Solanaceae
** Bell pepper
** Chili ...
and other spices.
When finished, the dark-brown meat sauce is called "bah-sò (肉燥)", and is also served with noodles, soup, vegetables and many homemade Taiwanese dishes.
The dish is commonly served with stir-fried vegetables and a marinated hard boiled egg on the side
Regional varieties
While minced pork rice is an important icon in typical Taiwanese folk cuisine, the variety of methods to customize flavors is so wide that it creates considerable differences between regions. In southern Taiwan, where people name it by the sauce "bah-sò-pn̄g (肉燥飯)" instead of the meat, minced pork rice is preferably served with pork with less fat. People in the north of Taiwan favor a greasier version of meat sauce with rice, sometimes even with glutinous rice mixed in.
In southern Taiwan, while "bah-sò-pn̄g" is seen on the menu indicating minced pork rice, "ló͘-bah-pn̄g (滷肉飯)" remains on the very same menu, referring to another dish where braised pork belly covers the rice. The same rice with braised pork belly is known as "khòng-bah-pn̄g (焢肉飯)" in northern Taiwan.
See also
* Taiwanese cuisine
Taiwanese cuisine (, Bopomofo:ㄊㄞˊㄨㄢˉㄌㄧㄠˋㄌㄧˇ, or , Bopomofo:ㄊㄞˊㄨㄢˉㄘㄞˋ) has several variations. The earliest known cuisines of Taiwan are that of the Taiwanese indigenous peoples. Over hundred years of histor ...
* Khong bah png (Braised pork rice)
* List of pork dishes
This is a list of notable pork dishes. Pork is the culinary name for meat from the domestic pig (''Sus domesticus''). It is one of the most commonly consumed meats worldwide,Raloff, JanetFood for Thought: Global Food Trends Science News Online. ...
References
{{Taiwanese cuisine
Chinese rice dishes
Taiwanese rice dishes
Ground meat
National dishes
Chinese pork dishes
Taiwanese pork dishes