Was watching "On the Red Dot" last night. The theme was "The Food That Made Me" and the episode was on Chef Pang searching for his Hakka heritage food.
From the episode, I learnt more about the origin of the Hakka folks and their traditional dishes, most of which I like to eat. Dishes such as Yong Tau Foo (酿豆腐), Lei Cha Rice (擂茶饭), Suan Pan Zi (算盘子), etc. Out of the few dishes featured in the episode, decided to attempt the easiest of all, Hakka Mei Cai Stewed Pork Belly (客家梅菜扣肉).
Immediately googled for recipes on my mobile phone while still watching the show. My mum used to cook mei cai but her cooking method was stir-fry with chili padi and minced pork. Found one recipe by Kenneth Goh, the admin of the Facebook group "Home-cooked Delights 家常便饭". His recipe seems easy enough and in his post, he suggested the use of store-bought roasted pork belly.
Went to the wet market to buy the mei cai and some roasted pork belly. This was my first time cooking this dish and first time buying these ingredients from the wet market so was a bit blur. Asked the roasted meat stall uncle how much roasted pork belly will $10 get me and he said about 400g so bought $10 worth. Then headed to the other stall to get the mei cai. Aunty recommended me to get the salted ones since this was my first time cooking with it. She asked me how many people eating and I told her just myself. She estimated the portion for me and the mei cai cost $0.60. Aunty even told me how to prepare the mei cai for cooking. So nice!
Happily came back from the wet market and started preparing the mei cai before I ate breakfast. Aunty said shake off the sand and salt then soak the mei cai for 30 minutes. After that rinsed and repeat for another 30 minutes.
Salted Mei Cai
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Store-bought Roasted Pork Belly
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While soaking, ate breakfast then prepared the other ingredients. After the soaking and cutting were done, started cooking. Basically was just stir-frying then simmering the minced garlic and mei cai with the seasoning. Then arranged the roasted pork belly in a steaming bowl with skin facing the bowl and stacking the mei cai on top before steaming over high heat for about 1.5 hours.
Mei Cai after stir-frying and simmering
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Packed roasted pork belly and mei cai into a bowl
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The result was pretty good and tasted great. As the dish can be kept for a few days, it will be my dish for lunch over the next few days.
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