It was while eating at Maison du Nord on St-Mathieu that I discovered roujiamo or “pork sandwich”, a Shaanxi dish that has spread around China. I had roujiamo also when I was in Beijing (see picture). Roujiamo is what you could consider a typical fast-food snack, sort of like a Chinese-style hamburger, or rather a Chinese-style sloppy joe.
So having a surplus of coriander leaves from my dumplings party last week, I decided to make my own roujiamo from scratch, bread included. I loosely followed this webpage.
I made the dough first and used yeast and baking soda to try and leaven it. I must’ve used around 2.5 cups of flour. Then, I prepared the meat. I bought around 1kg of pork belly, with fat and skin. I cut rough pieces, knowing that I could pass my scissors later as it simmers.
So, I started frying chopped onion and garlic in a wok and then added the pork. Then, I added three pieces of star anise, and a few pieces of cinnamon bark. I then added a little Chinkiang vinegar, and Chinese shaoxing wine and soy sauce (fermented). I could’ve added sesame oil too if I remembered. I added water to cover. Then, I then let the mixture simmer for around 30-45 minutes until I got a nice sticky mixture (probably the gelatin in the pork skin helps to give such a texture).
In the meanwhile, I cooked the break on a cookie sheet. I should’ve been more careful. The specimen on the picture is probably the one that was best made. The other pieces either baked for too long or were too thin to begin with.
Served with cilantro / coriander leaves as a topping.
Looks good. I never had this in China but it reminds me of something similar called TuErQiKaoRou or Turkish Barbequed meat. The pork was cooked like Shawarma meat (vertical rotating spit and all) but had a typically Chinese twist on the flavouring. The sliced pieces of meat were typically mixed with hot sauce (possibly combined with hoysin sauce) and sliced cucumbers. The filling was placed in between two slices of flatbread (probably the same as in your pic above but I always thought it was an English muffin). Pretty good and cheap street food at 3 quai.
It’d be neat if someone opened a restaurant that specialized in street food from China. That was some good, cheap food.
Nice try! Add chopped spicy green peppers in there too, like they do on the street. Delicious!