Try this Babi Kecap I (Pork Cooked in Soy Sauce) recipe.
- 4 garlic
- 2 tb boiled water
- 2 tb plain flour
- 1/2 kg (1 1/4 lb) fillet of pork
- 1 tb clear soya sauce
- 1 sl of root ginger, about 2 cm
- 6 tb oil or pork fat
- 1/2 ts powdered ginger
- 2 tb medium dry sherry or rice
- 3 tb dark soya sauce
- 20 g (4 oz) button mushrooms
- pepper or a pinch of chilli
- 2 ts lemon juice
- Carbohydrate 5.23119416701762 g
- Cholesterol 0 mg
- Fat 0.0791375 g
- Fiber 0.324708334248637 g
- Protein 2.08941166668212 g
- Saturated Fat 0.0143875 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Serving (156g)
- Sodium 782.747833333374 mg
- Sugar 4.90648583276898 g
- Trans Fat 0.0244625 g
- Calories 29 calories
Step-by-step
- This, as its name suggests, is pork cooked in soya sauce. It is a particular favourite with my own husband and children, who always know when it is about to appear on the table because the ginger and garlic frying in the sauce smell so deliciously savoury.
- Cut the pork into small cubes. Put the flour into a bowl and add the clear soya sauce and ginger powder, mixing them well together. Coat the pork with the mixture and then let it stand for at least 30 minutes.
- Clean and slice the mushrooms. Peel the garlic and ginger and slice them very thin; you can use these thin slices as they are, or cut them again into very tiny sticks.
- Heat the oil or fat in a wok or thick frying pan and fry the meat, half of it at a time, turning it from time to time, for 5 minutes.
- Repeat the process for the remaining half of the meat. The flour that coated the meat will tend to stay in the pan or stick to the bottom of it, but leave it there-it will thicken the sauce later. Now take most of the oil out of the pan, leaving only about two tablespoons which you then heat again. In this, fry the tiny slices of garlic and ginger and the mushrooms, stirring continuously, for i minute. Add the soya sauce, the water and the meat. mix well, season with pepper or chilli powder, and stir continuously for 1 or 2 minutes. just before serving, add the sherry or rice wine and the lemon juice. Serve hot.
- This dish keeps extremely well in the freezer, and it is worth making a large quantity from, say, half a leg-of pork, which is much cheaper than buying pork fillet. If you are going to freeze your Babi Kecap, however, do not add the sherry or lemon juice at the time of cooking. To serve from the freezer, thaw the meat out completely and heat quickly on a high flame for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring or shaking the pan well all the time. Add the sherry or rice wine and lemon juice just before serving.
- Makes 4 servings.
- From "Indonesian Food and Cookery", Sri Owen, Prospect Books, London, 1986." ISBN 0-907325-29-7.
- Posted by Stephen Ceideburg
- File ftp://ftp.idiscover.co.uk/pub/food/mealmaster/recipes/cberg2.zip
Coating pork cubes in a flour, clear soy sauce, and ginger powder mixture thirty minutes before cooking changes the protein structure just enough to create a distinct barrier that protects the interior from drying out while building a rich base for the sauce. When searing cubed pork fillet in a hot wok or heavy frying pan, crowding the cooking surface causes the meat to steam rather than brown properly; working in two separate batches ensures that each piece develops a proper crust while leaving the necessary residue behind to naturally thicken the subsequent liquid components. Maintaining high heat during the initial five-minute sear is critical for rendering fats and developing deep savory notes from the aromatics without overcooking the lean pork.
Managing the Pan and Aromatics
After removing the seared meat, reducing the oil remaining in the vessel to precisely two tablespoons prevents the delicate garlic, ginger, and mushrooms from becoming greasy when they hit the hot metal. Stirring these finely sliced aromatics continuously for one minute releases their essential oils into the pan without burning the residual flour left behind from the meat-browning phase. Introducing the dark soy sauce, water, and returned pork pieces creates a quick reduction that coats every surface, provided the heat remains moderately high and stirring is constant to prevent scorching.Final Adjustments and Freezing
Adding acidic and alcoholic elements like lemon juice and dry sherry strictly at the end of the cooking process preserves their volatile aromatic compounds, which would otherwise evaporate completely under prolonged heat. This preparation adapts exceptionally well to batch cooking; scaling the quantities up requires simply maintaining the ratio of surface area to oil volume so that browning remains effective rather than turning into a stewing operation. When freezing portions for later use, omit the acidic and alcoholic finishers entirely until the thawed meat has been rapidly reheated on a high flame for two to three minutes.
