Pork Chop with Rice Cake

Paigu niangao plates a marinated, breaded and fried pork chop together with Shanghai-style white rice cakes browned in the same pan, finished with a sweet-savoury sauce—meat and cake side by side.

A signature of Shanghai's everyday eating, paigu niangao was popular in the city's snack shops by the first half of the twentieth century, marrying northern-style pork chops with Jiangnan rice cakes in a typically Shanghai fusion.

Best served hot, when the chop is crisp outside and tender within and the rice cakes turn soft and soak up the sauce; it is often seasoned with Shanghai-style Worcestershire sauce.

The dish hinges on a freshly fried, fragrant chop, rice cakes soft but not mushy, and a balanced sweet-savoury sauce—each element setting off the others.