The earthenware altar has been widely used as a vessel for Chinese people since ancient times. It is not known when it became popular as a cooking vessel. It is said that the first people to use jars to cook food were in the rural areas of Sichuan Province. Whenever planting rice seedlings, harvesting, it is the busy season of agricultural work, but also is the need to "toothpaste" time. In order not to delay the farm work, people came up with a way, is to altar instead of pot, will be large pieces of pork into the altar, add water, add flavor, seal the altar mouth, into the chaff shells simmering in the fire. To close the work home, open the altar, not only meat has been cooked, and the aroma is overflowing. This is undoubtedly a method of the best of both worlds. Later, this method was introduced into the catering industry, so there was this unpretentious flavorful dish. Later, through the chef's continuous improvement, the ingredients inside the altar were also enriched and changed. But no matter how it changes, the meat is the main character of the dish.

Sichuan's altar meat, many kinds, with different materials, but can be roughly divided into two categories, a class of ordinary materials, suitable for the public cooking, eating; a class of high-grade materials, raw materials and a variety of large quantities of complex production process, mainly for some high consumers customized, but also can be used for traditional feasts. Below, each give an example:

a, choose a side of pork, 7 cm square, weighing about 350 grams, scraped clean, chicken thighs 1 fried in a frying pan, 200 grams of lean pork, minced, made into a meat pie, also fried in a frying pan to beat up the egg 1 boiled, shelled, and also deep-fried into a tiger's skin egg, 200 grams of asparagus cut into pieces of the net roller blade; will be the above ingredients into the altar, add 50 grams of wine, a piece of broken ginger, a piece of broken ginger, a piece of wine, and a piece of wine, a piece of wine, a piece of wine, and a piece of wine, and a piece of wine, and a piece of wine, and a piece of wine. , pat broken ginger a piece of white onion 40 grams, more than 20 peppercorns, 15 grams of rock sugar, 10 grams of soy sauce and an appropriate amount of fresh broth, sealed with wet straw paper, simmering in the grain husk shell fire 5-6 hours can be. "Original juice, fat but not greasy, mellow flavor" is the main feature of such altar meat. Of course, vegetarian materials can be added, such as mushrooms, fresh vegetables and so on.

Second, on the second type of altar meat earlier content and practice, only in some recipes, such as the 1960s printed on the internal information "Sichuan recipes" on the altar meat, the material counts: 250 grams of dried sea cucumber, 250 grams of dried shark's fins, 125 grams of dried scallops, 125 grams of gold hooks, 250 grams of dried cuttlefish, 2,500 grams of pork knuckles, a live hen, a live duck, ham, 500 grams of pork bones 1000 grams of ham, a live duck, 500 grams of pork bones 1000 grams of ham, a live duck, a live duck, a live duck, a live duck, a live duck, a live duck, a live chicken. 500 grams, 1000 grams of pork bone, 10 eggs, 125 grams of dried mushrooms, 1500 grams of shelled asparagus and so on. Dried seafood in the above materials are to go through a lot of procedures such as rising, sorting, rinsing or boiling, or flavored or wrapped in gauze, etc.; pork knuckles, chickens, ducks, clean remediation, each divided into 4 pieces, and then "out of water" treatment; eggs boiled in the shell, rinsed and cooled, wrapped in dry soybean meal fried. When the above materials are ready, and then a large Shaoxing wine altar, mixed with boiled water, pad pork bones, in order to put the ingredients and ginger, green onions, salt, pepper, soy sauce, rock sugar juice and other seasonings, with wet straw paper to seal the mouth of the altar; and finally put the altar on a tripod, sawdust simmering slowly on a low fire for 4, 5 hours and become. The finished dish maintains the original flavor of the ingredients, the color of the dish is golden red, the meat is extremely soft, fresh and fragrant. This altar meat, its portion is large, can be described as Sichuan cuisine in the "giant". The information said that this dish can be eaten by 20 people. According to the old man in the industry, this altar meat has not been done for many years, but its "reduced version", that is, to maintain the original types of ingredients, but reduce the amount used, there are chefs from time to time to cook, such as the 80's "Rong Leyuan" and today's "Da Rong He" in the 1980s and today. Currently, some improvements have been made to the method of cooking this dish, either by steaming the altar in a steamer or by simmering it directly over a low flame. In addition, the taste of the altar is more and more demanding, because it is not only a cooking vessel, but also can be served on the tableware.

Below, there is another kind of altar meat - Hanyuan altar meat, which is quite unique. Hanyuan County belongs to Sichuan Ya'an City, is an ancient city with a history of more than two thousand years. It is also the famous "hometown of pepper" in China. The history of Hanyuan janbian meat can be traced back to more than a thousand years. The original janjiang meat comes from the rural areas of Hanyuan. "Killing a pig for the New Year" is a custom in the rural areas of Sichuan Province, but a fat pig can not be eaten for the New Year, nor can it be eaten. How to save the remaining pork? This is a problem. So, there are smart farmers came up with a way, they will be divided into a number of large pieces of pork, salted, washed, dried, and then diced lard boiled, hit the dregs, hot, into the pork fried to the surface was golden brown, even with the meat with the oil poured into the earthenware pot, seal the mouth of the pot, placed in a low-temperature environment to preserve. It can be kept for one year. The pork stored in this way, the color of gold and red, salty and bland, crispy outside and tender inside, fat but not greasy, sticky and tasty. Need to eat, take out a piece, two pieces, remove the fat, slicing, shredding, and salt vegetables, or garlic shoots, or chili peppers and other ingredients to cook into a dish, not only a unique flavor, rich in meat, and has a strong local flavor. This method of storing pork is really effective and easy to operate, and soon spread in the Hanyuan area, and is still in use today. Here, the altar is as a memory, and therefore also known as altar meat, but also because it is different from the Sichuan cuisine in this dish, so the title "Hanyuan" two words.