Editor’s note: In the Taste of Life series, cooking experts, chefs and others involved in the field of food introduce their special recipes intertwined with their paths in life.

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Yoshiki Igeta, the 52-year-old owner-chef of Chugokusai Roshisen Piao-xiang, a restaurant in Tokyo that serves traditional Sichuan cuisine, was born to a dressmaker mother and a father who worked for an electric engineering company.

“I dreamt of becoming a baseball player or a cook,” Igeta recalled.

His vague wish, expressed in a collection of essays by his fourth-grade class, became an all-consuming passion during his first year of senior high school.

Igeta became hooked on a dish while working part-time at a local Chinese restaurant. Twice-cooked pork, known in Japan as “hoikoro,” that was served to the staff left an indelible impression. The sweet and spicy taste of the tianmian sauce and doubanjiang were entirely new flavors to him.

The cabbage was deep fried briefly in very hot oil beforehand. When he tried to imitate the process at home, the frying pan became engulfed in flames to the ceiling. “My mother gave me a hearty scolding,” Igeta recalled fondly.

Although he was assigned to wait on tables at the restaurant, the chef sensed something in the lad, telling him, “You should take this up because it suits you more” on the few occasions he helped in the kitchen.

Igeta only worked for a year at the restaurant. On his last day, the chef complied with his request to make twice-cooked pork. Igeta teared up when it came time to leave. The chef sent him off with the words, “take the path to become a chef.”

After graduating from senior high school, Igeta trained at a Chinese restaurant in Chiba Prefecture and then went to Chengdu in China's Sichuan province. He was 30 at the time. Hoping to learn traditional Sichuan cuisine, he began working at the kitchen of a hotel run by an elderly chef.

Igeta started off as an apprentice. One day he was told to cook a meal for the staff. The senior cooks decided on the menu. When Igeta found there were spare onions in storage, they would often ask for a twice-cooked pork.

Although Igeta was surprised to learn that cabbage was not used in the recipe, he became fascinated by the simple bold flavor of the dish, which all the staff in the kitchen loved. A plate heaped with twice-cooked pork disappeared in no time.

Twice-cooked pork is said to have originated with the custom of boiling the meat, offering it to the gods and then returning it to the pot. While cabbage and green pepper are staples in the Japanese version, any vegetable can be used. In Sichuan, people are said to enjoy twice-cooked pork made with just pork and garlic leaves, or with pork and chili pepper only.

Yoshiki Igeta: Born in Chiba Prefecture in 1971, Igeta is an owner-chef of a Sichuan cuisine restaurant. After studying at the Chiba Cookery College, he trained in Shanghai and Chengdu. He opened Chugokusai Roshisen Piao-xiang in Tokyo’s Yoyogiuehara in 2005. He now runs four restaurants in Tokyo and is active on television and the magazine world. He apprenticed at a fine local restaurant serving traditional Sichuan cuisine and was recognized as being a successor to the style.

BASIC COOKING METHOD

Main Ingredients (Serve 2)

120 grams pork belly slices (buta-baraniku), 100 grams onion, 40 grams nira green, Seasoning A (1 and 1/2 tsp doubanjiang, 1/2 tsp tianmian sauce, little more than 1 tsp “douchi” (fermented black soybeans known here as “tochi”), 1/3 tsp soy sauce, a pinch of sugar, 1 tsp Shaoxing wine (“shokoshu”) or sake, 1/2 tsp finely chopped garlic)

1. Cut pork belly slices into length of 5 to 6 cm. Cut onion into bite-size pieces. Cut nira into 7-cm long pieces.

2. Pour 1 Tbsp oil in frying pan, add onion from (1) and cook on low heat for about 7 minutes and remove.

3. In the same pan, add 1 Tbsp oil, heat and turn off stove. Lay each piece of pork slices so they cook evenly. Stir-fry on medium heat.

4. When meat is done, add Seasoning A and stir-fry until aroma rises. Add (2) and nira and briefly cook over high heat.

About 390 kcal and 1.5 grams salt per portion
(Nutrient calculation by the Nutrition Clinic of Kagawa Nutrition University)

SHORT MEMOS

After all the ingredients go in the pan, the step of cooking on high heat at the very end reduces the oiliness.

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From The Asahi Shimbun’s Jinsei Reshipi (Life Recipe) column