Pork Stroganoff Recipe for Tender Pork Made with the Chinese Velveting Technique

My pork Stroganoff recipe makes an umami-rich, melt-in-the-mouth pork Stroganoff. The silky, tender-soft texture of the pork comes courtesy of the Chinese velveting technique, a method that calls for marinating and pre-cooking the pork before stir-frying it. Braised with mushrooms in a richly-spiced sour cream-based sauce, my pork Stroganoff takes inspiration from Shanghai’s East-West Haipai cuisine.

If you enjoyed my richly spiced chicken Stroganoff recipe and you’re a lover of Chinese cuisines and dishes made with the Chinese velveting technique – such as the popular stir-fried pork with mushrooms that partly inspired this dish – you’ll love this pork Stroganoff, especially with crispy shoestring fries, a classic Stroganoff side.

Instead of doing what we do with the beef in my traditional Russian beef Stroganoff recipe, and cooking the meat in the pan with the onion and mushroom sauce, which if you’re not careful can easily result in tough pork, I use the Chinese velveting method to create a silky-soft, super-tender pork and wok-fry it.

If applying a Chinese cooking technique to a traditional Russian dish sounds like a strange thing to do, keep in mind that when Stroganoff left the Russian Empire with Russian émigrés following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, it landed in Harbin, China, then Shanghai, then Hong Kong, before it travelled to countries such as Australia and the USA.

The food that those Russian émigrés served in the many restaurants and cafés they opened, initially to feed other expatriates missing the flavours of home, was gradually adapted to suit local tastes. No more so than in Shanghai, where an East-West fusion cuisine called Haipai developed. My pork Stroganoff recipe is inspired by that cuisine, time and place.

If you make and enjoy my pork Stroganoff recipe, do try my mushroom Stroganoff recipe for a vegetarian take on beef Stroganoff, my rustic meatball Stroganoff recipe, gently spiced chicken Stroganoff, or my spaghetti Stroganoff. Head here to my best Stroganoff recipes for the complete collection.

Before you scroll down to our pork Stroganoff recipe, we have a favour to ask. Grantourismo is reader supported. If you’ve cooked this dish or any of our recipes and enjoyed them, please consider supporting Grantourismo. You could buy a handcrafted KROK, the best mortar and pestle ever, buy something on Amazon such as these cookbooks for culinary travellers or classic cookbooks for serious cooks, or browse our Grantourismo store for gifts for food lovers designed with Terence’s images. Now let me tell you more about my pork Stroganoff.

Pork Stroganoff Recipe for Tender Pork Made with the Chinese Velveting Technique

My pork Stroganoff recipe is the result of my frustration in not finding a pork Stroganoff recipe from that period from 1917 to the start of World War II, when Shanghai became home to a vibrant Russian community and Russian restaurants were as popular with locals as the expatriates.

Because not long after arriving in China, those White Russian émigrés, who became known as Shanghai Russians or ‘luó song’, opened some 40 Russian restaurants in Shanghai’s ‘Little Russia’ on Xiafei Road, also known as Avenue Joffre and now called Middle Huaihai Road.

Over the years the food served evolved into Russian-Chinese cuisine, then Western-Chinese or Haipai cuisine as menus incorporated other European dishes. But by the close of 1937, when there were over 200 Haipai restaurants, most on Xiafei Road and Fuzhou Road, the most popular dishes were borscht and Stroganoff. There had to be a Russian-Chinese pork Stroganoff.

Terence and I have long been fascinated by how food travels with refugees and migrants and how dishes are transformed in their new homes – whether it’s due to an inability to source ingredients from home or because new ingredients and techniques are adopted.

In the case of expatriates who start restaurants in their new adopted homes, dishes from their homeland are often adjusted to appeal to the taste of locals. Because while expatriates might come and go in waves, there will always be a local customer base.

We’ve seen evidence of how food evolves in diasporas all over the world. Indeed, some of the most disappointing Russian-Ukrainian food we’ve tasted outside Europe was in New York (not to mention terrible Turkish food and Indian food), yet exciting new cuisines can also develop.

While those first Russian restaurants no longer exist in Shanghai – a handful of Russian eateries did survive for decades after those white Russian émigrés had resettled in Australasia, North America and other parts of the world, ran by new Chinese owners – and Haipai cuisine can still be found and, I hear, is making a comeback.

During my research I came across a few Chinese borscht recipes – and I’m going to test those out and share a recipe here soon – but I couldn’t find a Chinese Stroganoff recipe, and the Stroganoff dishes on menus I found were beef Stroganoff, not pork Stroganoff.

I decided to create a pork Stroganoff recipe anyway, because Chinese, like Southeast Asians, adore pork, and the pork in China and here in Southeast Asia is incredibly delicious. One of the most popular Chinese dishes is a classic stir-fried pork with mushrooms.

I took inspiration from that dish, which is how I came to use the Chinese velveting technique, but I stuck with the flavours of my chicken Stroganoff, which is loaded with the deep savouriness of umami. I have a few tips to making my pork Stroganoff recipe for you.

Tips to Making this Pork Stroganoff Recipe with the Chinese Velveting Technique

Just a handful of tips to making my pork Stroganoff recipe, as it’s fairly straightforward despite the couple of extra steps that comprise the Chinese cooking method called velveting.

The Chinese Velveting Technique

There are two stages to the Chinese velveting method: tenderising and marinating the meat, then quickly pre-cooking the meat before stir-frying the meat with a sauce and vegetables.

The tenderising and marinating stage is sometimes a two-step process, involving pre-coating the meat with a tenderiser such as bicarbonate soda, and washing it off before marinating, however, you can also include a tenderiser such as corn starch in the marinade, eliminating a step in the process, which is what I like to do.

Classic Chinese marinade ingredients typically include a combination of Shaoxing cooking wine, oyster sauce (we like Lee Kum Kee Premium Oyster Sauce), light soy sauce and/or dark soy sauce, an oil (we prefer sesame oil), maybe white pepper, perhaps sugar, and corn starch as the tenderiser, and marinating the meat can be done in as little as 30 minutes.

The second stage of the Chinese velveting technique involves pre-cooking or par-cooking the meat, which is either done in oil in a very hot wok or under water, which is called water-velveting. I prefer a quick wok-fry in a very hot wok, as you’ll then continue to use the wok and fry the pork and other ingredients, so that’s quicker, easier and makes more sense.

After the velveting, my pork Stroganoff recipe is made in much the same way as my chicken Stroganoff recipe.

Stroganoff Accompaniments

I like to serve my Stroganoff dishes with mashed potatoes or buckwheat kasha, but another traditional Russian Stroganoff accompaniment of shoestring fries is perfect with pork Stroganoff, as is rice for an Asian inspired Stroganoff. I prefer brown rice for my pork Strog.

If you’re serving this pork Stroganoff as part of a family feast, I also recommend a Russian garden salad on the side, perhaps some piroshki to start, and maybe some Russian pelmeni which also came from the East, from Siberia, most likely having arrived during the Mongol invasions.

Despite the Asian inspiration, Stroganoff is inherently Russian, which means you will still want to garnish your dish with loads of fresh dill and dollops of sour cream. Gherkins or dill pickles cut through the richness.

Pork Stroganoff Recipe Made with the Chinese Velveting Technique

Pork Stroganoff Recipe for Tender Pork Made with the Chinese Velveting Technique

AuthorLara Dunston

My pork Stroganoff recipe makes an umami-rich, melt-in-the-mouth pork Stroganoff. The silky, tender-soft texture of the pork comes courtesy of the Chinese velveting technique, a method that calls for marinating and pre-cooking the pork before stir-frying it. Braised with mushrooms in a richly-spiced sour cream-based sauce, my pork Stroganoff takes inspiration from Shanghai’s East-West Haipai cuisine.

Print Recipe Pin Recipe Rate this Recipe

Prep Time 30 minutes mins

Cook Time 1 hour hr

Total Time 1 hour hr 30 minutes mins

Course Main Course

Cuisine Russian, Russian/Australian

Servings made with recipeServings 4

Calories 564 kcal

Equipment

Plastic Food Storage Containers

Mixing Bowl

Carbon Steel Wok

Ingredients

 

MetricUS Customary

 

1x2x3x

Marinade and velveting

• 500 g pork loin - sliced into strips ½ cm thick
• 1 tsp dark soy sauce
• 1 tsp oyster sauce
• 1 tsp Shaoxing wine
• 2 tsp water
• ¼ tsp baking soda
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• ½ tsp white pepper
• 1 tsp cornstarch

Stir-fry

• 4 tbsp soybean oil - divided
• 2 onions - roughly sliced
• 250 g brown mushrooms - sliced in thirds
• 1 tsp light soy sauce
• 1 tbsp fish sauce
• 1 tbsp tomato sauce
• 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

Stroganoff

• 200 ml sour cream
• 100 ml cream
• 1 tsp ground allspice
• 1 tsp ground smoky paprika
• 1 tbsp wholegrain mustard
• 1 tsp white pepper
• 1 tsp sea salt

Instructions

 

• To a large plastic container with lid, add the dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, Shaoxing wine, water, and baking soda and stir until well combined. Add the pork strips and combine until they’re completely coated with the liquid and it’s absorbed.
• In a small bowl, stir the sesame oil, white pepper and cornstarch together, add it the pork, combine well until thoroughly mixed through, pop the lid on, and marinate for 30 minutes. (Note: if you’re in a hot climate with no air-con, refrigerate the pork, however, it should be removed and reach room temperature before searing.)
• While the pork is marinating, prep the rest of the Stroganoff ingredients: slice the onions and mushrooms and set aside; in a small bowl or jar, combine 1 tsp light soy sauce, 1 tbsp quality fish sauce, 1 tbsp tomato sauce, and 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce, and set aside; and ready the other ingredients.
• When the pork is at room temperature, heat a wok over high until hot, pour 2 tablespoons soybean oil around the rim to coat the entire surface. Using tongs, transfer the pork to the wok, sear one side until opaque, then turn to sear the other side until opaque, all of which should take a minute, no more. Transfer the pork to a clean bowl and set aside. (Note: do the pork in two batches if needed.)
• To the same wok, add a tablespoon of soybean oil and when hot, stir-fry the onions until translucent, then set aside.
• Add another tablespoon of soybean oil, heat until hot, add the mushrooms and stir-fry on high for a minute or two until they start to brown, add the mixture of soy sauce, fish sauce, tomato sauce, and Worcestershire sauce, combine and continue to stir-fry for another minute.
• Add the pork, combine well, and stir-fry continuously for 30 seconds, then return the onions, combine and stir-fry for another 30 seconds, then turn the heat down to medium.
• Add the sour cream and cream, allspice, smoky paprika and wholegrain mustard, stir to combine well, then simmer for ten minutes or so until the sauce thickens and spices meld together. Taste and adjust the seasoning, adding the salt and white pepper if needed.
• When the sauce is thick and creamy and rich and aromatic, plate individually with rice or noodles, garnish with fresh dill, and serve with dishes of gherkins and additional sour cream.

Nutrition

Calories: 564kcalCarbohydrates: 14gProtein: 33gFat: 43gSaturated Fat: 15gPolyunsaturated Fat: 12gMonounsaturated Fat: 11gTrans Fat: 0.1gCholesterol: 136mgSodium: 1399mgPotassium: 980mgFiber: 2gSugar: 6gVitamin A: 947IUVitamin C: 6mgCalcium: 111mgIron: 2mg

This recipe is one of my great Friday dinner ideas if you want dinner in to feel like dining out. Please do let us know in the comments below if you make my pork Stroganoff recipe as we love to hear how our recipes turn out for you.