San Choy Bow, Crunchy Pork Lettuce Cups

Cantonese san choy bow, the Sydney Chinese-restaurant classic: savoury pork mince, crunchy water chestnuts and shiitake in a light, glossy sauce, piled into crisp iceberg lettuce cups brushed with hoisin. 30 minutes and one wok, with every ingredient matched to Australian kitchens.

Ingredients for 4

Australian tablespoons are 20 ml. Weights are given where they matter. Thaw the frozen pork mince and water chestnuts in the fridge overnight, or in their sealed bags in cold water for about 1 hour.

Method

1. Step 1Prep the vegetables

   Dice the water chestnuts, shiitake and carrot into 5 mm pieces. Finely chop the garlic and ginger. Slice the spring onions, keeping the whites and greens apart.

   

2. Step 2Make the lettuce cups

   Cut out the core of the iceberg and run cold water into the hole so the leaves loosen. Peel off 12 whole leaves, trim them into cups with scissors and chill them in iced water for 10 minutes. Drain and pat dry.

   

3. Step 3Mix the sauce

   In a small bowl, stir together the oyster sauce, 1 tbsp of the hoisin, the soy sauce, sesame oil, sugar, white pepper, cornflour and water until smooth.

   

4. Step 4Fry the aromatics

   Heat a wok over high heat until it just smokes. Add the oil, then the garlic, ginger and spring onion whites, and stir for 20 seconds until fragrant.

   

5. Step 5Brown the pork

   Add the pork and break it into small crumbs with the wok spatula. Cook for 4–5 minutes until the liquid has gone and the edges brown, then splash the Shaoxing wine around the side of the wok.

   

6. Step 6Add the vegetables

   Add the shiitake and carrot and toss for 2 minutes. Add the water chestnuts and toss for 1 minute more, so they stay crunchy.

   

7. Step 7Glaze the filling

   Stir the sauce again and pour it in. Toss for about 1 minute until it thickens and coats every crumb, then take the wok off the heat and toss through the spring onion greens.

   

8. Step 8Fill and serve

   Brush each lettuce cup with a little hoisin, spoon in the hot filling and serve straight away. Eat them with your hands.

   

Watch it in 41 seconds

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Why this version works

• Water chestnuts are the crunch. Frozen peeled water chestnuts are sweeter and crisper than canned; dice them and add them last so they stay crunchy.
• Brown the mince, don't stew it. Thaw it, pat it dry and cook it over high heat in small crumbs until the liquid is gone and the edges colour. That is where the flavour comes from.
• Oyster sauce does the heavy lifting, with a spoon of hoisin for gloss and gentle sweetness. Cantonese cooks smear a little hoisin on the lettuce before filling it, and so do we.
• A little cornflour makes the sauce cling to every crumb, so the filling is glossy, not wet, and the lettuce stays crisp.
• Ice-cold iceberg cups. Run water into the cored lettuce and the leaves slip off whole; trimmed with scissors and chilled in iced water, they snap when you bite.
• No rice needed: about 465 kcal a serve. Not spicy, so it suits the whole family.

Swaps and variations

• Chicken san choy bow: use chicken mince and cook it until no pink remains; add 1 extra tbsp oil if it is very lean.
• Beef san choy bow: beef mince works the same way; drain off any extra fat before adding the vegetables.
• Restaurant crunch: scatter crispy fried noodles or crushed roasted peanuts over each cup just before serving.
• Dried shiitake: soak 6 dried shiitake in hot water for 20 minutes, squeeze dry and dice; add 2 tbsp of the soaking liquid to the sauce for a deeper flavour.

Nutrition per serve

Calculated by Umall from the ingredient weights, using the Australian Food Composition Database (FSANZ); shiitake and raw water chestnut are from USDA FoodData Central. Figures are per serve, about 3 lettuce cups and no rice. All the hoisin is counted, including what is brushed on the cups; salt added to some Shaoxing cooking wines is not counted. Values are estimates and vary with the brands you use. Energy bands are a guide to portion size, not a health claim.

Questions about San Choy Bow

Sources and credit

Method by the Umall recipe team, cross-checked against Nagi Maehashi's RecipeTin Eats san choy bow, Chinese Cooking Demystified's Cantonese lettuce wraps and Christine's Recipes, with the dish's Sydney history from Wikipedia (listed below). Quantities are our own, scaled for Australian kitchens and Umall products.

• RecipeTin Eats (Nagi Maehashi), Chinese Lettuce Wraps (San Choy Bow)
• Chinese Cooking Demystified, Cantonese Seafood Lettuce Wraps (生菜包)
• Christine's Recipes, Minced Pork Wrapped in Lettuce (San Choi Bao)
• Wikipedia, San Choy Bow

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