Dongbei Braised Pork Stew

Luàndùn (literally 'chaotic stew') is the defining cooking style of Dongbei home cooking — a throw-in-everything pot braised for hours. The ingredients vary by season and household but typically include bone-in pork ribs, aubergine, potato, green beans, courgette, fresh corn on the cob and sometimes tofu skin, all simmered together in a broth of soy sauce, Shaoxing wine, star anise and ginger until the vegetables are deeply tender and have absorbed the pork-fat richness. The long cooking blurs the boundaries between ingredients — potato crumbles and thickens the broth, aubergine melts into the fat. It is served in the clay pot, piping hot, placed in the centre of the table for communal eating. Portions are generous and the dish is deeply filling — suited to the cold winters of Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces where it originated as practical farmhouse cooking.