Dark Sauce Pork

My first exam is tomorrow but I decided to take some time off to blog about something new I've learned here in Tassie. Picked up this recipe from a Singaporean friend of mine called Linus who got it from his mother I believe. Lets just call it dark sauce pork or dao yu bak.

Ingredients:
300g pork (I used pork rashers which is basically 3 layer fatty pork), cubed or pieces
dark soy sauce
pepper
salt
approx 1/2 to 1 tbsp of sugar
chilli powder or flakes
10 whole clove herbs
10 cloves of garlic, smash it a bit

optional items:
hard boiled eggs
firm tofu, cubed
shitake mushrooms, sliced
onions, sliced

1. In a bowl mix together the pork with dark soy sauce and some pepper, making sure that all the pork is coated in the soy sauce. Leave it to sit and marinate while u prepare your other ingredients. If you want you can leave it the marinate for a few hours to allow the pork to soak up more flavour.



2. Once you're ready to cook, add some oil in your pan and fry your garlic till they start turning brown. Add in your pork and continue frying till it changes colour.

3. At this point, add in some water. Depending on your preference you can make this dish more saucy or watery. Add in the cloves, chilli flakes/powder, a bit of salt and sugar. (Adjust the amount of chilli or sugar according to your taste preference, some people prefer it more spicy/sweet whereas others don't) You will probably need to add in more dark soy sauce as well. Cover and leave it to simmer on lower heat. Stir occasionally.

Linus said that how long you leave it over the fire depends on you. The longer you leave it on the softer the meat should be I reckon. If you don't have the luxury of time then just make sure the meat is cooked and you can take it off the stove. I keep it over the fire for about an additional 30 minutes after the initial frying.

4. Approximitely 15 minutes into the simmering process you can add in stuff like hard boiled eggs, firm tofu and shitake mushrooms. Throw them in earlier if you don't intend to keep it over the stove for so long. On my most recent attempt at making this dish I also added onions which I thought were quite nice, but that's because I love onions. Be sure to stir it around now and then throughout the process, this will also allow the sauce to coat the eggs and tofu and change their colour and enhance their flavour.

Essentially this dish should have a somewhat salty, sweet and spicy flavour to it, with a hint of the clove herbs. Great with rice or you can do those kong bak bao kind of thing too I reckon. I'm just wondering if next time I should try adding some corn starch to thicken the sauce further... As well as trying to let it simmer for an even longer time, might taste even better! Well, experiment another time I guess! Hope I did justice to Linus mom's recipe. Thanks for this great recipe man!