NYONYA TAU EU BAK [PORK BELLY IN DARK SOY SAUCE]

Tau Eu Bak [Braised Pork Belly With Eggs] is a common dish in my mum’s place. She prepares this dish at least once a week using pork belly, firm beancurd and hard boiled eggs as the main ingredients together with soy sauce as seasoning. Her Tau Eu Bak is good eventhough the seasoning is according to her own estimation, like using her finger tips to add in the sugar and pouring in the dark soy sauce and light soy sauce straight from the bottle without a measuring spoon. Yet, it never fails.  This trick, we can never master.

I came across this Nyonya [Peranakan] pork belly dish recipe shared by Pearly Kee in her book ‘A Nyonya Inheritance’. This recipe is one of the recipes which I have tried from her book. Her way of cooking this dish is different from the other Nyonya recipe book ‘Nyonya Flavours’. For a comparison please refer to this  Recipe.

Anyway, this Tau Eu Bak turns out well, good and tasty, too. In my opinion, it is not difficult to cook this popular Nyonya dish yet the result is awesome. I have adjusted the seasoning a little such as reducing the amount of dark soy sauce and white pepper to suit my own preference. I have also omitted 1-2 steps because the pork belly was already tender after braising for about 45 minutes. The original recipe stated about 1 and ½ hours or so for the meat to be tender.  For this recipe, you would not be able to see the whole garlic after cooking.

Yummy-licious Nyonya dish, so good to serve with sambal belacan and steaming hot rice.   My advice is to cook this whole portion and store them in smaller portions if you can finish it in one go.  

Recipe adapted from ‘A Nyonya Inheritance’ by Pearly Kee with slight modifications

Ingredients
[serves 5-6]

600 gm pork belly with skin – cut chunky pieces

1 bulb garlic – skin removed and keep whole

3 pieces firm beancurd [taukwa] – quartered and fried until golden

4 hard-boiled eggs [or more if preferred]

2 cups [500 ml] water

Marinade [Mix together in a bowl]

4 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp dark soy sauce [I used 1 tbsp]

3 tbsp sugar

½ tsp salt

1-2 tbsp white pepper powder [I used 1 tbsp]

1. Combine marinade ingredients in a bowl and rest for 15 minutes for the sugar to dissolve.
2. Place pork belly pieces, garlic and marinade in a pot and turn on high heat.
3. Stir the ingredients to mix evenly. It is important to control the heat to prevent the marinade from drying up too fast. Reduce to medium heat and constantly stirring until the marinade is almost dry and oil begins to surface [about 10-15 minutes]. This will give the dish an amazing flavor.
4. Add enough water [1 cup] to cover the ingredients. Turn to medium high heat and cover to boil until the liquid is reduced [about 20 minutes]. Top up with more water and cover to cook for a further 20 minutes.
5. Then add in the fried beancurd pieces and hard boiled eggs. Stir to coat ingredients with the sauce.
6. Cover and lower heat to simmer until gravy has reduced by half and has thickened.
7. Serve warm with steaming hot rice.
   
   
   
   
   
   

Pearly’s Tips – Proper heat control is very important for this dish. The easiest is to cook it in a slow cooker for 2 hours with just enough water to cover the meat.

I am submitting this post to Cook Your Books Event #28 [November 2015] hosted by Joyce of Kitchen Flavours