No fluff—just the simplest methods that actually work 😊

Hi,William
this dish isn’t a well-known or standard recipe in traditional Chinese cuisine. However, combining three different meats (or proteins) in one stir-fry or braise does reflect a certain culinary trend that was more common in the 1980s, especially in banquet-style or home-style cooking that emphasized abundance and variety.
More importantly, the use of hoisin sauce as a primary braising sauce for such a dish would have been quite unusual in China at that time, particularly in northeastern regions like Harbin. While hoisin sauce has long been used in Beijing (e.g., with Peking duck) and in Cantonese cooking, it wasn’t widely adopted as a base for mixed-meat braises in northern home kitchens back then.
it’s highly likely that your instructor created this recipe himself—perhaps blending regional techniques, personal taste, and available ingredients (especially if they were teaching outside of China). It’s a wonderful example of how cooking classes often preserve unique, undocumented dishes that live on only in students’ memories… and now, thanks to you, in this conversation too!