Braised Pork Bun (Kong Bak Bao / 扣肉包)

Braised Pork (Kong Bak / 扣肉)  is a popular Chinese dish, and even catering services include that in their menu. People eat it with buns and name it Kong Bak Bao, 扣肉包, or Braised Pork Buns. It's so delicious and easy to make! My son loves this dish hence we want to try it out and learned from our senior relatives!

Braised Pork Bun (Kong Bak Bao / 扣肉包)

Does that make you drool? It's really a very simple process to cook and you just have to follow the below steps.

Ingredients

500g of Pork Belly

1 tablespoon of oil

4 tablespoon of dark soy sauce

6 dried mushrooms

6 de-shelled hard boiled eggs

1 cinnamon stick

1 star anise

4 cloves

6 garlics

4 Tau Pok (Dried Beancurd)

10 sugar cubes

Lettuce

Buns

Steps

1. Soak the dried mushrooms till soften. Cut into slices and squeeze the water out.

2. Blanche the pork belly. 

Blanching the Pork Belly for 2 minutes in hot boiling water

3. Heat 1 tablespoon of oil, and fry the pork belly till it become brown under medium heat for 10 minutes. Add 2 tablespoons of dark soy sauce and fry for about 5 minutes.

4. Add 1 liter of water, cinnamon stick, star anise, cloves, garlic, mushrooms, sugar into the pot and 2 tablespoons of dark soy sauce. Simmer for 1 hour under medium heat.

5. Add the de-shelled hard boiled eggs and tau pok (cut into fours) after an hour and under slow heat to simmer.

Frying the Pork Belly with dark sauce mixture 

6. Cut into thin slices before serving. You may use lettuce to add the colour of the home-made sandwich! You may accompany this dish with rice.

How to eat

1. Place a piece of lettuce between the bun.

2. Add a thin slice of the braised pork belly inside.

3. Munch!

Notes

1. Make sure you don't over burn in the initial frying of the pork belly. Medium to high heat will do.

2. Do not use too much of the spices. Use the amount as stated above.

3. You may wish to simmer as long as about 2 hours, till the meat is softer.

4. For the buns, you may wish to get the ready made ones from supermarkets.

5. Sugar cubes are optional as it enhances the sweetness of the entire dish.

Pork Porridge

For children, at times they need porridge in their diet. Hence for my children, I prepare for them daily porridge and one of the type is pork porridge. I will add in a few vegetables, so that the whole meal will be a well-balanced one. And it's really commenting that they finish their lunch most of the time!

The best thing is that the whole preparation and cooking time is around 10-15 minutes. I would prefer them to have these home cooked food, rather than those quick fix such as bao, rice crackers, biscuits etc to bring to school.

Occasions
Breakfast
Picnic
Dinner

Ingredients (for 2 children)
1 cup of rice
5 tbsp of minced pork
6 cherry tomatoes (halved)
3 white button mushrooms (diced)
3 fresh black fungus (chopped)
Some spinach leaves
Some sweet tapioca (sliced)

Steps
1. Place 3 cups of water together with the rice and sweet tapioca. Place them on medium high heat. Cover the pot throughout.
2. Place the minced pork in a bowl of hot water. Stir it so as to remove the blood. Place the blanched meat into the pot.
3. Place the mushrooms and the black fungus after 5 minutes.
4. Place the spinach and the cherry tomatoes after 8 minutes.
5. Let it boil for another 2 minutes.
6. Serve.

Radish and carrot soup

I chanced by my Bishan market and saw white radish! I am so amazed that they sold organic white radish that are grown in our home soil - Singapore! Wow! They looked so beautiful and I have decided to try cooking them.

Occasions

Lunch

Dinner

Ingredients
4 small white radish or 1 large radish
2 medium carrots
$2 worth of pork ribs
4 red dates
1 small piece of ginger


Steps
1. Blanch the pork ribs for a minute.
2. Remove the skin of radish and carrots. Chop them into 1cm thick and place into the soup of 1.5 litres of water. Add the
ribs.
3. Cut the red dates into half and add into the water, together with one small piece of ginger.
4. Boil for 45 minutes and serve.
5. Add salt to taste.

You may ask how come I want to add a piece of ginger into the soup. Will it spoil the sweetness of the roots? Apparently, radish are 'cold' 寒 in nature. In order to remove this coldness 去风, it is recommended to add ginger. Red dates also have this power to do so also!

Actually pork ribs are optional for this soup. You can omit it and make this as a pure vegetable soup as well. Radish, however have this special capability to absorb sweetness in meat, and when you bite it, you can taste the enhanced sweetness with its original taste. I urge you to try once with and without pork ribs. There is a difference in the sweetness.

I have tried organic radish as well as normal ones. And I'm really amazed to know that organic ones are so much sweeter and it's delicious. You can go to Blk 151 Bishan Street 13 vegetable stall to get these. Apparently the farmer grows at Lim Chu Kang. I really hope to go and visit his amazing farm one day. Organic radish are slightly smaller and thinner. Hence you need to get around 4-5 of them depending on the amount you need to cook.

A gentle note is try not to drink this soup too often. Probably once every fortnight is good enough. Love this soup so much!