The Chinese name of this dish means "Lion Head". The origin of the name is quite simple, the pork ball should be made to look like the head of a stone lion, which can be seen almost everywhere in China. Alhough the main ingredient looks pretty simple and boring, this dish is actually far more than a mere pork ball. The pork to make this dish has to be streaky pork. Then the pork should be sliced then minced into very tiny cubes. The cook will put all these tiny cubes together and using a lot of patting and throwing between both hands to make the tiny cubes into a pork ball. There are a lot of skills here. When you bite and chew the final product, you should find it tender but not soft. For if it is poorld made or if machine minced pork is used, it will only taste soft and just like any other pork balls.

Cooking of this dish is where it takes a lot of time. It should first go through some frying to make the skin look like a lion head. Then a long time is needed for it to be stewed in a soup stock over very gentle fire. The soup stock is very complex here, it could consist of pork leg bone, Chicken, Duck, Pork ham(火腿), Bamboo shoots(冬笋), etc. Different components of the soup stock add different flavors to the dish.