Dao Ban Xiang (Cured Pork on the Board)

Dao Ban Xiang is a traditional Huizhou cured meat made by salting pork belly with Sichuan pepper and star anise, then air-drying; before eating it is steamed on a fragrant camphor-wood board, so the meat's savour permeates the wood and the wood's fragrance returns into the meat, hence "fragrance of the board."

The method grows from the old Huizhou village custom of salting meat in winter for the year ahead; merchants carried such cured meat on their travels, and it spread to become a classic cured dish of Hui inns and banquets.

Once steamed, Dao Ban Xiang is sliced hot and served, the fat translucent and the lean deep red, savoury and richly moist, often paired with dried bamboo shoots and rice as an opening cold dish of a Hui banquet.

The mingling of meat and camphor-wood fragrance born of board-steaming, and the savoury, richly moist texture, are the distinctive marks of Dao Ban Xiang.