Mum made this yummy braised dish over the weekend. Simple and delicious!
Ingredients
Light soya sauce
Dark soya sauce
White pepper
5 Spice powder
Star Aniseed – 2 pieces
20 pieces of mini tau-pok (can buy from wet market, look for the stalls that sell bean sprouts / tau pok)
300 gms of minced pork shoulder (“kap sang”)
1 large carrot (usually water chestnut is used but today we use carrots)
Prepare the stuffing
1. Place the minced pork and diced carrots into a mixing bowl/platter
2. Marinade with 1 tablespoon of light soya sauce and sprinkle of white pepper
Pack the stuffing
1. Lazy way … just use your fingers to split the tau pok
2. Pack in as much mixture as you can without making it look like Santa’s overflowing gift bag
Prep the braising sauce
1. Add enough dark soy sauce to cover the tau pok when it is simmering. In our case the pot is big enough to fit all the 20 pieces of tau pok so the height of the sauce is upto the line of the tip of my last finger (remember when you place a solid in the liquid, the liquid level rises).
2. Add 1/2 teaspoon 5 spice powder
3. Add 2 whole aniseeds (or 1+ is also ok if that’s what you have)
4. Add 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of sugar
5. Bring to a boil, then simmer
Bring it on
1. When the sauce starts to simmer, place the stuffed tau pok in one by one.
2. Bring it to a boil, then lower heat to medium for simmering
2. Cover the pot with a lid (with a vent for steam to escape. If your lid doesnt have one, prop one side up of the lid with a chopstick or long ladle placed across the pot).
3. Wait about 5-7 minutes. The meat cooks pretty fast. Check and see if meat is ready. Once done, turn off the heat. It’s ready to serve or kept aside for another day.
Enjoy 🙂
