Moo Shu Pork

[La Niña]

How about a soup dumpling without the wrapper?

[Blue Heron]

I always loved moo shu pork, but I don't think I've had it in several years. But I love the idea of wrapping bits of meat and stuff in a wrap, ie peking duck, fajitas, tacos, gyros, and my currrent favorite... fresh Vietnamese Spring rolls with meat , herbs & and veggies wrapped in lettuce and rice paper, yum. Spring rolls (both fresh and fried) taste better with than without the wrap. Flavor & texture.

[Blue Heron]

I forgot to mention another thing I liked about moo shu pork... it was fun to eat. And it was fun to eat it with other people. And the other wrapped things like the Vietnamese spring rolls are fun, too (at least to me).

[torakris]

There is supposed to be egg in moo shu pork?

I don't recall ever eaten it that way.

I can't imagine it without the Hoison sauce!

To me that is what Moo shu pork is, I used to eat it when I had a hoison craving.

I haven't had moo shu pork in almost a decade!

and when I did it was in very cheap restaurants around Cleveland, Columbus, or Athens, Ohio and it was never very good.

So what's up with the ketchup thing?

[SobaAddict70]

Hooray! Good comment. That's exactly right. Moo Shu is an egg dish with a little pork, not a pork dish with a little egg.

This is more clearly seen when translating the name from Chinese. That's because 'Moo Shu' is the name of a small yellow flower, the cassia flower, and it's said that the pieces of egg  in Moo Shu rather poetically resemble and remind one of those cassia flowers.

Of course, this is entirely consistent with the mutation of Chinese cuisine in the United States. I mean, the cooks probably changed things to suit the tastes of their adopted homeland, so it makes sense that an egg dish with a minimum of pork changed to become a pork dish with a minimum of egg. (Plus, of course, the evolution of the dish probably had an economic underpinning -- people who prepared it may have gone from an environment where meat was scarce and their cooking methods/food preparation methods reflected this, to an environment where ingredients in general were plentiful, cooking fuel was abundant, and the population was noticeably more affluent.)

That said, just how is Moo Shu supposed to be prepared? And I take it that MS Pork is the one and only original. Everything else is an abomination. (MS Shrimp, MS Chicken, MS Vegetables, MS Beef, MS Lobster...)

SA

[eatingwitheddie]

Actually, I prefer the homemade ones, which aren't quite translucent.  The translucent ones always dissolve in my hand.  Got any tricks?

Me too. Love good homemade ones, hate everything else!

[eatingwitheddie]

Moo Shu failed because of the pancake. Why ruin good food by unneccesarily pairing it with a casing it doesn't need? Peking Duck is the same. Good roast duck that is crispy along with some hoisin to dip it in is a good enough dish. What does the pancake do for it?

right. Moo Shu Pancakes are for tourists.

NOT!!

I must be a heathen because I love eating wrapped things.

[eatingwitheddie]

I ususually eat moo shu without the pancakes. I also enjoy vegetarian versions, particularly with mushrooms.

You inevitably have to eat it without the pancakes because there are never enough pancakes to go around. So I end up eating some the next day over rice.

A trick: order 4 extra. It works. Costs a buck.

[Steve Plotnicki]

I like eating wrapped things too. But let's face it, moo shu pork is a sandwich and Americans reject sandwiches as dinner food, or maybe even restaurant food. That's why moo shu was a phase. Just like Peking Duck was a phase. You don't see people being served gyro sandwiches in restaurants either. But you do see sliced pita bread with a tomato and yogurt sauce laid atop and then slices of doner kabab served for dinner.

[eatingwitheddie]

Do you want hoisin sauce on your Moo Shu? Did you know that hoisin on Moo Shu is like catsup on steak?

I just wanted to point this out again.

Anyone know why? Anyone care?

Yes eddie, please enlighten us tourists...

MOO SHU PORK

Moo Shu Pork is a northern Chinese egg dish typically wrapped in wheat flour pancakes. In Chinese, the words ‘Moo Shu’ are the name of the yellow cassia flower, a poetic reference to the look of the scrambled eggs in the dish. Moo Shu Pork first became popular in the US during the late 60’s and early 70’s. There were so many exciting things about it! Here was a delicious new dish that was fun and authentic, and you could eat it with your fingers.

Classically prepared Moo Shu Pork is a stir-fry of scrambled eggs, pork shreds, tiger lily buds, shredded bamboo shoots, tree ears, and scallions. It does NOT contain: carrots, cabbage, nappa, ginger, garlic, mushrooms, chicken, beef, or shrimp.

When properly made it is ‘dry-cooked’. This means that the finished dish should have no visible sauce. There are liquids that flavor it, but they are used in small quantity and then reduced away during stir-frying. The distinctive aroma of an authentic Moo Shu Pork is created by the subtle muskiness of the sautéed lily buds combined with the smell of the just warmed sesame oil. When cooking Moo Shu Pork, the goal is to bring out this subtle musky aroma and combine it with a tasty/savory background of flavor.

Today, however, it’s likely that the recipe used by your local Chinese restaurant produces a very different dish, one that has evolved and adapted itself to the perceived demands of the mass marketplace.

To start with, probably because the same pancakes are also served with Peking Duck, and because Moo Shu Pork is dry-cooked, and because the not so knowledgeable American customer was used to having ‘sauce’ with their ‘rolls’ and asked ‘what kind of sauce goes with this dish’, some enterprising restaurateur decided to serve hoisin with Moo Shu Pork. To complicate matters, a common mistake was incorporated and many Americans started mistakenly referring to hoisin as plum sauce. Think of this, here you have gone to all of this trouble to create a subtly delicious dish permeated with the exotic fragrance of the lily buds and you obliterate all that effort with a spoonful of tasty but overwhelming hoisin sauce. May taste good, but it’s still catsup on steak.

As its popularity soared chefs started to regard Moo Shu Pork as a profit center. Chicken, shrimp, beef and vegetarian versions appeared. To lower production costs bulky and inexpensive vegetables like cabbage and carrots were shredded and added to the recipe. To accommodate American tastes, the proportion of meat and egg was reversed so that instead of 4-6 eggs per order, there were only 2. Pancakes, instead of being homemade, were outsourced and often far from an acceptable quality. Over the coarse of a few decades Moo Shu Pork changed considerably. On many take-out menus it is now a category of its own.

I far prefer the traditional musky version sans hoisin, Oftentimes, however, when I order Moo Shu Pork in a restaurant, the flavor that I’m looking for just isn’t there on the plate in front of me. What do I do? Ask for some hoisin of course! Wrapping it up and eating it with your fingers always feels like fun to me, and it tastes better that way!

[La Niña]

Is a blintz a sandwich? What about a dumpling?

[VivreManger]

I don't mean to rain on this moo shu (why not mu shu or moo shoo or moshe -- for the Plot) parade, but I have always avoided the dish because I have noticed that it, like fried rice, was where a Chinese restaurant dumped its left-overs. About twenty years ago I had this confirmed by a friend whose brother used to own the Empire Seczhuan chain in Manhattan, for which she also occasionally worked when she was not rolling in stock-market dough. She said it was common practice in the Chinese resto-biz.

That said, there is no reason why it can't be delicious, but those left-overs doubtless contributed to its mediocre (at best) reputation.

[tissue]

Moo Shu failed because of the pancake. Why ruin good food by unneccesarily pairing it with a casing it doesn't need? Peking Duck is the same. Good roast duck that is crispy along with some hoisin to dip it in is a good enough dish. What does the pancake do for it?

I've never eaten mooshoo pork before. But the pancake for wrapping the roast duck is to absorb any oil/fat underneath the layer of duck skin that drips. The scallions are to provide a contrast to the richness of the fat. In Chinese food when something rich and fatty is eaten, there is usually a counterpart cutting the richness to provide balance.

I like the wrap, it's supposed to be thin, and so good when it's fresh and hot.

[eatingwitheddie]

I like eating wrapped things too. But let's face it, moo shu pork is a sandwich and Americans reject sandwiches as dinner food, or maybe even restaurant food. That's why moo shu was a phase. Just like Peking Duck was a phase. You don't see people being served gyro sandwiches in restaurants either. But you do see sliced pita bread with a tomato and yogurt sauce laid atop and then slices of doner kabab served for dinner.

I'm concerned with whether or not I enjoy eating a particular thing, not whether that item is currently in style with American eating habits.

For those of us who eat lots of Asian food it's easy to point to many wraps and hand held foods that people regularly have for dinner.

By the way when was that Peking duck phase? I think I missed it!

Plus in a sequenced Chinese meal we're trying to create a balance of different foods and different flavors, textures and colors. Very often something wrapped up and eaten by hand provides an excellent juxtaposition against other items. You'll be experiencing that in our New Year's banquet next week.

[Steve Plotnicki]

No you are confusing what I said. I have a general proffer that Americans find eating sandwiches to be a less refined dining experience then if the ingredients were presented decomposed. And in light of that I offer that Moo Shu was sort of fadish. It was hip and trendy for a while but when people realized it was really a sandwich, it fell out favor. It used to be a centerpiece of the meal. Even those lettuce bundles at Canton which were popular for a while fell out of style because what is the purpose of wrapping it and eating it? There is nothing that can't be served outside of its wrapper and almost everything tastes better without it. This of course is different for things like dim sum which perform a lunchtime function.

[La Niña]

Is a crepe a sandwich?

[eatingwitheddie]

I don't mean to rain on this moo shu (why not mu shu or moo shoo or moshe -- for the Plot) parade, but I have always avoided the dish because I have noticed that it, like fried rice, was where a Chinese restaurant dumped its left-overs.  About twenty years ago I had this confirmed by a friend whose brother used to own the Empire Seczhuan chain in Manhattan, for which she also occasionally worked when she was not rolling in stock-market dough.  She said it was common practice in the Chinese resto-biz. 

That said, there is no reason why it can't be delicious, but those left-overs doubtless contributed to its mediocre (at best) reputation.

This might be true in some instances but not in most. There is no reason for it. In a Chinese restaurant kitchen the same shredded pork is used for all the shredded pork dishes as well as many other things like spring rolls and hot & sour soup -- either the shredded pork is fresh or not. If their Moo Shu Pork was made from old meat then all their shredded pork dishes would have the same problem.

While it is true that leftover rice is used for fried rice, you must understand that the basic recipe for fried rice calls for leftover rice. Freshly cooked rice is too sticky to stir-fry properly. Yes the small bits of meat and vegetable in fried rice may be made of trim (certainly not always), but that on its own doesn't make them less wholesome or good tasting.

[VivreManger]

Ed Schonfeld (By the way how does one get those visually appealing highlighted quotes?)

"While it is true that leftover rice is used for fried rice, you must understand that the basic recipe for fried rice calls for leftover rice. Freshly cooked rice is too sticky to stir-fry properly. Yes the small bits of meat and vegetable in fried rice may be made of trim (certainly not always), but that on its own doesn't make them less wholesome or good tasting."

I am not talking about the rice, but rather about the other bits and pieces that get thrown into the mix. The day's fresh trim is one thing. Meat and vegetables cut up but not used the day before is another.

I agree that moshu dishes can be well-prepared, but too often they are not treated with respect.

[Robert Schonfeld]

So, where in New York City does one get an authentic version?

[eatingwitheddie]

So, where in  New York City does one get an authentic version?

Good question. Maybe some eGulleters will now know what to look for and stumble upon it.

Otherwise, my house.

[La Niña]

You don't have a recommendation, seriously?

[eatingwitheddie]

Ed Schonfeld (By the way how does one get those visually appealing highlighted quotes?)

.

Click on the 'quotes' box in the upper right corner of the post you want to reply to. A new screen will appear with two large boxes. On top is the place for your reply post. Underneath it will be another smaller box with a copy of the post you're replying to. You may edit it if you like.

[Jaymes]

There is certainly a world of difference between the mooshu served in "Americanized" Chinese restaurants and that served in authentic Chinese ones.

Kind of like "golf" vs. "miniature golf."

But sometimes, those windmills and dragon's mouths can be fun.

Edited January 23, 2003 by Jaymes (log)

[laura]

Ed,In the pursuit of the authentic Moo Shu Pork experience, when are you inviting us to your house?

[eatingwitheddie]

You don't have a recommendation, seriously?

Seriously. I usually don't order it because I know in advance that I'm usually not going to get what I want.