Mei cai kou rou (pork belly with preserved mustard green) is a typical Hakka cuisine. The first time I ate it was when I was touring China and it was a really popular recurring dish during our meals.
When I was in Glasgow, I did the shortcut version by braising it. There are two types of preserved mustard green: sweet and salty type. Usually they use a mixture of both to cook. There were times when I did not rinse it properly and there was some sand in it.
Eventually I came across ‘instant’ dried preserved mustard green that looked like dried tea leaves. It was pre-washed, pre-cut and required minimal soaking time. I still rinse it once or twice though after soaking ‘just in case. The pre-cut ones are more similar to the ones I had in China. When I came across the instant one here in Malaysia, I decided to cook the proper version this time around.
There are several steps: a)Clean b)Boil c)Marinate d)Fry e)Soak f)Steam g)Plating
Mei Cai Kou Rou 梅菜扣肉 (Steamed Pork Belly with Preserved Mustard Green)
Ingredients
100g ‘instant’ dried mustard green (mei cai)
500g pork belly
Shao Xing cooking wine
Few slices of ginger
2 bay leaf
2 Star Anise
1 tbs chopped garlic
Dark soy sauce
Light soy sauce
Salt to taste
Coarse salt
Method
a) Clean
Thaw frozen pork belly and clean pork belly. Use tweezers to remove hair and coarse salt to exfoliate the pork belly skin. Rinse away the coarse salt.
b) Boil/ Simmer
Boil then Simmer pork belly with shao xing wine, few slices of ginger, 1 bay leaf and 1 star anise for 10 minutes.
c) Marinate
Dry it with a paper towel then use a fork to pierce the skin. Then pour dark soy sauce all over it and leave it for 20 minutes skin side down. Then turn it over (skin side up) and leave the skin to dry up.
d) (i)Fry Pork Belly
Pat the marinated pork belly with a paper towel if it is not dry enough. Fry the Pork belly.
e) Soak
Soak it in cold water for 15 minutes
d) (ii)Fry Preserved Mustard Green
Fry chopped garlic, sliced ginger and star anise until browned. Stir in washed & soaked dried mustard green. Add quarter cup to half cup of water, salt, dark soy sauce and light soy sauce to taste. Cook it for about 10-15 minutes until liquid has reduced slightly.
f) Steam
Slice the pork belly to 0.6cm to 0.8cm or desired thickness. Place the pork belly skin side down in the bowl and top it up with fried preserved mustard green including gravy. Cover the bowel with a plate of aluminium foil. Steam on medium high heat for 1 hour 40 minutes.
g) Plating
When it cooled down, I held the bowl and plate vertically to ‘extract’ the gravy. I thickened it over the hob with corn starch and added salt to taste (optional). Flip the bowl over carefully. Drizzle gravy and garnish with parsley.
How was it?
Labour intensive process… Thank goodness I was multitasking. Greasy floor and a kitchen smelling like lard even though I shallow fried the pork belly. I was mopping the floor with dish detergent and ventilating the whole place when it was steaming. Not used to it as I don’t do any deep frying.
It tasted okay.
The next time I make it… I would not thicken the gravy. And will make a bigger batch to freeze and eat for the next few meals.
