What's cooking? 5 essential Shanghai ingredients

Shanghai cuisine -- and its ingredients -- are often summed up with four words: nong, you, chi and jiang.

Nong (literally meaning rich in flavor) refers to strongly flavored, thick sauces. You (meaning oil) signals that dishes use a lot of oil -- this isn't a cuisine for the fat-averse.

• More on CNNGo: Shanghai's best Shanghainese cuisines

Chi (meaning red) refers to the cuisine’s dark red sauce -- think of the red braised hongshao sauce. Jiang refers to the generous use of jiangyou, or soy sauce.

While beloved classics of Shanghai fare like xiaolongbao, the juicy pork dumplings, and deep-fried sweet-and-sour pork, can be a hassle to make yourself, with five essential ingredients Shanghai’s staples are dead easy to whip up.

1. Hongshao sauce

This hongshao sauce and the fatty pork belly that it's often cooked with is one of the most addictive of Shanghainese dishes -- the sugar hit, the euphoric rush, the gluttonous giddiness followed by overeating guilt. It's no wonder that this was reputedly Mao’s favorite dish.

Hongshao braising is also traditionally used with many other cuts of pork, including pork chops, pork slivers (rou si, often served over noodles) and “lion’s head meatballs” (hongshao shizitou).

• More on CNNGo: The fattiest foods in Shanghai ... and why we love them

It’s also used with all kinds of river and ocean fish, including yellow croaker (xiao huangyu), fresh water eel (shan yu) and belt fish (dai yu).

You can even heat a simplified version of hongshao sauce and pour it over fried eggs. Hongshao eggs over rice make for a deceptively luxurious late-night snack.

Hongshao pork recipe

Ingredients

1. Cooking oil
2. One slice fresh ginger
3. Half kilo cubed pork belly
4. Half cup dark soy sauce
5. Two tablespoons sugar
6. Three tablespoons Shaoxing wine
7. One tablespoon red fulu (fermented tofu)
8. Salt, to taste
9. Handful chopped scallions 

Method

1. Heat the cooking oil and fry a slice of fresh ginger until it releases its fragrance.
2. Add the cubed pork belly and sear it golden brown until it releases its oil.
3. Add about a half a cup of dark soy sauce and cook for one minute.
4. Add two tablespoons of sugar and about three tablespoons of Shaoxing wine. Reduce the liquid for about a minute, making sure not to let the soy sauce burn.
5. Now add enough water to just cover the pork, turn the flame low and simmer. At this time you can add one tablespoon of red fulu (fermented tofu).
6. Let it slowly cook over a low flame until about half the liquid is evaporated, about 20 to 30 minutes.
7. Add salt to taste.
8. Finally, turn the flame up high for about a minute to reduce to a thick and shiny consistency and stir it well.
9. Sprinkle with chopped scallions and serve with plenty of hot rice.