Guilin Eighteen Stuffed Delicacies

Ingredients

Wrapper — anything tube-shaped works

• Green peppers, bitter melon, eggplant, river snails, tofu, shiitake mushrooms, pumpkin flowers
• Pomelo peel, bamboo shoots, winter melon, taro, garlic, tomatoes, bean sprouts, eggs, wild mushrooms
• Principle: anything can be stuffed

Filling — mainly meat

• Ground pork (the basic version, fat-to-lean ratio 3:7)
• Shrimp paste filling (fork version)
• Fish filling
• Mixed filling (free combinations such as pork + shrimp paste, pork + snail meat)

Steps

Core idea

1. "Stuffing" (niang) means taking a hollow, tube-shaped ingredient as a container, packing seasoned meat filling into it, then pan-frying or braising it until cooked.
2. Take the two stuffed dishes already in the collection as examples:
3. Stuffed green peppers: seed and hollow out the peppers → fill with pork or shrimp paste → pan-fry until blistered → braise in sauce
4. Stuffed river snails: blanch the snails and remove the meat → chop the snail meat and pork together → stuff back into the shells → braise with perilla and mint
5. Swap in another tube-shaped ingredient and repeat the same process, and you have a new dish. Stuffed bitter melon, stuffed eggplant, stuffed tofu... all work the same way.
6. The filling can vary too:
7. Pork filling: the most basic, all-purpose choice; a 3:7 fat-to-lean ratio gives the best texture
8. Shrimp paste filling: sweet, fresh and springy; common in stuffed green peppers
9. Snail and pork filling: the soul of stuffed river snails—snail meat and pork 1:1, with perilla and mint
10. Mixed filling: pork + shrimp paste, combining fresh sweetness with rich fattiness
11. One container with one filling; change either and you have a new stuffed dish. Locals say "anything can be stuffed," and this is exactly why.

Bridge Pattern

12. Decouple the "container" from the "filling" so the two vary independently and combine freely:

Abstraction layer (Abstract Wrapper): tube-shaped container (CylindricalContainer)
├── StuffedGreenPepper extends CylindricalContainer
├── StuffedBitterMelon extends CylindricalContainer
├── StuffedEggplant extends CylindricalContainer
├── StuffedRiverSnail extends CylindricalContainer
├── StuffedTofu extends CylindricalContainer
├── StuffedShiitake extends CylindricalContainer
├── StuffedPumpkinFlower extends CylindricalContainer
├── StuffedPomelo extends CylindricalContainer
├── StuffedBambooShoot extends CylindricalContainer
├── StuffedWinterMelon extends CylindricalContainer
├── StuffedTaro extends CylindricalContainer
├── StuffedGarlic extends CylindricalContainer
├── StuffedTomato extends CylindricalContainer
├── StuffedBeanSprout extends CylindricalContainer
├── StuffedEgg extends CylindricalContainer
├── StuffedWildMushroom extends CylindricalContainer
└── ... anything can be stuffed
Implementation layer (Filling Implementation): meat filling (MeatFilling)
├── PorkFilling implements MeatFilling
├── ShrimpPasteFilling implements MeatFilling
├── FishFilling implements MeatFilling
└── MixedFilling implements MeatFilling  // pork + shrimp paste, pork + snail meat...
Swap the wrapper and it's a new dish; swap the filling and it's another variant.