Recently Piglet’s regular bak kut teh shop has closed down. That place had good quantity of pork belly and soup. And was reasonably priced too! There was extras to keep as leftover and add vege the following day.
Piglet has been trying to find a replacement but it has been a disappointment. So I suggested that we could try cooking out own. It might not be up to par but we could adjust it accordingly.
Bak kut teh means pork bone tea in the hokkien dialect. It is herbal base with soy sauce.
We were planning to buy a herb mix pack and so happened our relative had packs that were expiring soon so we took one. It’s our first time trying it.
Bak Kut Teh Recipe
Ingredients
Bak Kut Teh herb mix
2 tbs Goji Berry
5 Dried Shiitake Mushroom
8 pieces of Yu zhu (Solomon’s Seal Rhizome)
5 red dates
2 Garlic bulb
1 tbs Oyster sauce
Salt to taste
Dark soy to taste
2 pork bones
500g pork belly
Others:
Taupok (Tofu puffs)
Enoki mushroom
Lettuce
Method
a) Prepare Soup base
Blanch pork bones with boiling water or boil it for 10 minutes to get rid of gamey smell. Boil pork bones, herb mix, garlic, yuzhu, shiitake mushroom, red dates, goji berry for 5-10 minutes then simmer for at least 1 hour. I simmered mine for 5 hours. Add salt, soy sauce and oyster sauce to taste.
b) Prepare pork belly
Blanch pork belly in boiling water then boil it with ginger, cooking wine and dark soy for 10 minutes to get rid of gamey smell. Simmer it in the bak kut teh soup stock for 1 hour 30 minutes. Take it out and put it aside. Cut it into slices before serving.
c) Prepare dipping sauce
Piglet’s dipping sauce: Light soy sauce and garlic.
My dipping sauce: Light soy sauce and birds eye chili (chili padi).
d) Prepare other ingredients (optional)
Wash and put lettuce in a colander to drain it.
Cooked tofu puff and mushrooms separately as I did not want to alter the taste and dilute the main soup broth.
I like the herbal soup flavour and the non meat ingredients in the soup.
2 meals of bak kut teh
We had bak kut teh for 2 dinners. The first day the soup was too bitter to my liking. The second day it was no longer bitter but sweet. The soup cooled down really fast so I put a portable induction cooker on the table for the second day and took smaller soup serving.
