Pot-stewed food refers to a dish made by boiling the raw materials after preliminary processing and blanching in a prepared marinade. Generally, it can be divided into three categories: red halogen, yellow halogen and white halogen. Sichuan bittern is the most common in China, and the representative of Sichuan bittern, such as the aged bittern in liao ribs, is mainly red bittern.
The key to making pot-stewed flavor is the preparation of brine, and different traditional Chinese medicine spices can be made into brine with different flavors. There are several kinds of spices in the market to make pot-stewed flavor, among which the common ones are star anise, cinnamon, pepper, Gan Song, fennel, white cardamom, Amomum villosum, fragrant leaves, clove, female clove, galangal, ginger, citronella, licorice, Amomum tsao-ko, dried tangerine peel, pepper, Ziyun, scorpion, earthworm, Siraitia grosvenorii, and red. Spicy duck neck bittern is prepared with 28 kinds of spices.