Choreographer Chiang Ching Shares Her Shredded Meat With Bean Sprouts Recipe From Her Culinary Memoir

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, Chiang Ching was in Rome, choreographing Ai Weiwei’s production of the opera Turandot. When the theater closed its doors, Chiang returned to her home in Stockholm. Suddenly, life was very quiet. In lieu of her usual creative outlets, she turned to cooking. Originally from China, Chiang has spent much of her professional career in the U.S. and Sweden. Her culinary inspirations are varied, but during the pandemic she turned to Chinese classics. “I was isolated home by myself,” says Chiang. “I made comfort food, to quiet down and not think about the pandemic and death.” Chiang was also cooking for her son, an emergency room doctor; three times a week she’d leave him a package of dishes on her driveway.

A phone conversation with a photographer friend, Yanan Li, led Chiang to start writing down her recipes. The result is Finding Joy through Food: A Culinary Memoir, with Recipes. Chiang’s recipe for shredded meat with bean sprouts is one of five bean-sprout dishes in the book; she also includes instructions for growing sprouts. “During the pandemic it wasn’t easy to go to the Chinese grocery shop,” says Chiang. “The concept of the book is to work with what you have. Like dance, you improvise with what’s available.”

Chiang Ching. Photo by Yanan Li, Courtesy Chiang.

Grow Your Own Bean Sprouts

Rinse and drain 3/4 cup of mung beans and place them in a kettle. Add 4 cups of water, close the lid, cover the spout, and soak the beans for 4 hours. Uncove­r the spout and pour out the water, using your finger to keep the beans inside. After­ this, keep the lid on but leave the spout open.

Each morning and evening, slowly add cold water through the spout to cover the beans, then slowly pour all the water out. Repeat this process. In 4 to 5 days, the pot will be filled with tender white sprouts, ready to use.

Photo by Yanan Li, Courtesy Chiang.

Ingredients

150 g shredded pork loin or other cuts of pork, beef, or chicken

1 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp Chinese or sherry cooking wine

1/2 tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp ground white pepper

1/2 tbsp sesame oil

3 tbsps vegetable oil

1/2 onion, thinly sliced

1/2 bell pepper, cut into thin strips

250 g bean sprouts (If you don’t want to grow your own, bean sprouts are available at most grocery stores.)

salt, to taste

Instructions

Place the thinly shredded meat in a bowl. Add soy sauce, cooking wine, sugar, white pepper, and sesame oil, and let marinate for 30 minutes or longer.

Add 2 tbsps vegetable oil and the onion to a frying pan, and sauté until the onion is fragrant. Add the marinated meat, and sauté until the meat begins to turn lighter in color. Remove the mixture from the pan.

Add remaining 1 tbsp vegetable oil to the frying pan and briefly sauté the bell pepper. Then add bean sprouts and season with salt. When the vegetables are cooked to your desired doneness, add the meat and onion mixture back into the pan and stir together.

Photo by Yanan Li, Courtesy Chiang.

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