Tuesday 3 November 2015

Chinese Dark Soy Braised Pork Belly 扣肉(Kong Bak)

This is another signature dish of my mother-in-laws. We like to make th8s during family gathering as one of our buffet dish.
Few years ago my church sister request me to make this for fund-raising event. It received very good comments. We usually keep the sauce from the kong bak to make dark soy eggs and toupok and also tang hoon(glass noodle). This will become another dish fir dinner. Go very well with white porridge or white rice.

Ingredients:
500g pork belly with leaner cut. Slice into 1.5cm.thickness
600g shoulder butt. Slice into 1.5cm thickness
1/2 cup dark soya sauce (appro. 8 tablespoons)**
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp pepper
1 cinnamon stick
2 star anise
4 clove
1 tbsp homemade corriander powder(optional).
10 cloves of garlic
3-4 cups of water

                                       Cinnamon stick
garlic
Clove
Star anise


**Note on dark soy sauce:
The saltiness of different brands and grades may vary. Those lower grade sauce can be more saltier. So, I would suggest you add half then adjust by adding a spoon at a time according to your desire taste.

Method:
1. Pan fry the slice pork without oil. I used stainless steel pot. Heat the cleaned and dry pot. Place the meat slice by slice to just slightly brown both side and remove from fire. It is about 20%  cooked. It is simply brown both sides. You can opt out this process if short of time or lazy. But of course this process enhance the taste.

2. Put all the browned sliced pork into a pot on stove. Add all the balance ingredients except garlic. Put this pot of meat to boil in high heat. Stir. You will also start to see there are more liquid at the base of the pot. This liquid is from the pork itself. Stir to mix well.

3. Cook until the liquid is almost dry, with 10% liquid left. Add hot water to just cover the meat. Add garlic. Continue to cook the meat at moderate heat until meat is tender. In between braising process, check the saltiness. You may add a little more of dark soy sauce to your desire taste. Total braising time is about 45min to an hour.  Off fire. And serve with lotus shape bao with lettucte.

You may be interested in the following recipes using pork as the ingredients :
1. Roasted Crispy Pork Belly / Siew Yuk
2. Ama's Pan Fry Dark Soy Pork Chop
3. Char-siew-bbq-pork



3 comments:

  1. Hi what brand of dark soya sauce
    did you use?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi what brand of dark soya sauce
    did you use?

    ReplyDelete
  3. I m blessed by your recip esp during covid. Family enjoy this delicious dish.

    ReplyDelete