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Chinese Burritos


Do you have a memory of a meal that was absolutely perfect each and every time you had it?  Maybe something only served on special occasions because it so hard to make or could only be had from a special restaurant?  Maybe something special because your grandmother was the only person who made and you only saw her once or twice a year?  For me, it was Moo Shu Chicken from a upper scale Asian restaurant in my home town.  So upper scale that I can count the number of times I have eaten there on my two hands.  And what was the one thing they had that was above and beyond any other Asian restaurant: Moo Shu Pork.  In face, I am not sure there was another restaurant in town that served it at all.

Some twenty five years after my first experience having been introduced to it and some 15 years since having it since, I have decided to scour the internet in search of Moo Shu Pork.  After months and months and months, I stumbled across how to make it.  Unfortunately, it is not as simple as following one recipe.  As it turns out, my beloved Moo Shu Pork is a combination of many Moo Shu recipes (Moo Shu Chicken and Vegetable Moo Shu) that together with a few substitutions then create my fondest food memory.  A meal we lovingly refer to as Chinese Pancakes.

Fair warning, I am going to try my best at explaining how to make Chinese Burritos.  While I have some 30 odd pictures of showing each and every step, this is not one of those blogs.  However, there will be more than the standard one or two pictures just to help with clarification on the process.  While not complicated in terms, there are many, many, many steps to ensure Chinese Burritos success. Besides, the blog website linked for the recipes have fabulous pictures and very detailed instructions that you can follow the same as me.

Instructions:


Prepare your stuffings.  Two cups finely sliced Napa cabbage, one cup finely sliced carrots, celery ribs, bamboo shoots, mushrooms, and pork.  One quarter cup green onions.  The sauce was one tablespoon hoisin and oyster sauce, one teaspoon soy sauce, sesame oil, and crushed garlic. Two eggs scrambled, fried omelet style, and then cut into thin ribbons.


As your stuffings come to room temperature, prepare your pancakes.  The recipe for pancakes can be found on Easy Pecking Duck Mandarin Pancakes and it was followed EXACTLY as written.


Once pancakes are cooked and set to the side in a warm moist towel to stay soft and pliable, cook all veggies and pork.  This was done in multiple batches.  First the pork, then carrots and celery, finally the cabbage, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, green onions.  All completed batches were then mixed together and sauce was added and allowed to cook until sauce thickened.  It is the final step in making Chinese Pancakes that will either make or break the entire meal.  Vegetable to meat ratio out of proportion, that is okay. Pancakes not round or too small, that is okay.  You cheaped out and bought inexpensive hoisin sauce, throw the whole mess in the garbage.  Your time and energy has been wasted on the savings of just a few dollars.  Trust me when I say this: DON'T BUY CHEAP.  Seriously, it is the full flavor richness of quality hoisin sauce that is the most CRITICAL step to this whole meal.  CRITICAL. Buy the good stuff.  You will thank me.

With high quality hoisin sauce, a little goes a long way.  These tortillas are around 8" in size and no more than two teaspoons per tortilla of hoisin sauce were added as the base sauce.  Wrapped it burrito style and eat either like a burrito or cut into slices.


Scaled for Likability: Great
There you have it.  Chinese Burritos aka Moo Shu Pork but more closely resembling Moo Shu Chicken with extra veggies and pork instead of chicken.  IE: Moo Shu Porken (AKA Chinese Burritos).  A time consuming meal so worth the hours of work, I would eat this monthly.  While the pancakes do not save well, the stuffings do and are equally as tasty with leftover rice, thin pasta noodles, or lo mein egg noodles.  

Enjoy!!
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