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Bak Kut Teh

MALAYSIAN CLASSICS 1 of 2

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Originating in Klang, just outside Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, bak kut teh means ‘pork bone tea’. It's
basically pork ribs and other cuts in a rich and complex broth of medicinal herbs.

Most people make theirs using pre-packaged spice packs, which is fine, but I much prefer to make
my own soup base. Once you make it from scratch once you'll never go back to the pre-packaged
spices.

The medicinal herbs may look confusing, but they are actually quite common ingredients in Chinese
cooking. Most of them are available from a good Asian grocery, but I buy mine from a Chinese
herbalist which tend to have higher quality herbs. In the recipe below I’ve given you the Mandarin
pronunciations and Chinese character translations of all the herbs, so you can just show the
herbalist your list.

Ingredients
10 dried shiitake mushrooms, quickly rinsed

2 kg pork belly

1 kg pork ribs

3 whole garlic bulbs

3 teaspoons salt

2 tablespoons caster sugar

1 tablespoon white vinegar

2 tbsp soy sauce

1 pack fried tofu puffs (tau pok), halved

300 g enoki mushrooms

6 thin spring onions, very thinly sliced

coriander sprigs, to garnish

cooked rice, to serve

5 sticks youtiao (fried Chinese bread sticks), to serve

sliced bird’s eye chillies, to serve

Herb pack
20 g Codonopsis pilosula (wen tang shen) 纹黨參

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20 g Chinese angelica (dang gui) 当归

15 g lovage root (Ligusticum wallichii) (chuan xiong) 川芎

15 g Rehmannia glutinosa (shu di) 熟地

5 slices licorice root (gan cao) 甘草

20 g Solomon’s seal (yu zhu) 玉竹

3 pieces dried tangerine peel (cheng pi) 陈皮

15 g cassia bark (gui bi) 桂皮

3 star anise (ba jiao) 八角

1 teaspoon white peppercorns (bai hu jiao) 白胡椒

Method
1. Heat 4 litres (135 fl oz/16 cups) water in a stockpot and add the shiitake mushrooms. Turn off the heat and let
the mushrooms stand for 20 minutes to soften. Remove the mushrooms, then trim off the stalks using a pair of
kitchen scissors. Return the caps to the pot, and place the pot back over the heat.

2. Wrap the ingredients for the herb pack in a double layer of muslin (cheesecloth), and secure the pack with
string. Add to the pot and simmer for 30 minutes.

3. While the herb pack is simmering, place the pork in a separate pot and cover with cold water. Bring the water to
the boil and simmer for 20 minutes. Remove all the pork from the water and rinse the pork to remove any scum.

4. Add the pork to the simmering soup base, along with the garlic bulbs, salt, sugar, vinegar and soy sauce.
Simmer for about 1 1/2 hours, until the pork is tender, but not falling apart. Remove the pork from the soup and
allow to cool slightly.

5. Add the enoki mushrooms and tofu puffs to the soup and simmer just for 10 minutes, or until both are softened.

6. Cut the pork into small pieces, and separate the ribs. Add the pork and ribs to a heated serving bowls (a clay
pot works well), then ladle the hot broth and mushrooms over. Scatter with the spring onion and coriander
sprigs.

7. Serve with cooked rice, with youtiao and sliced chillies in soy sauce on the side.

Tips
This is also great served with blanched iceberg lettuce that's been covered with oyster sauce and scattered with
fried shallots.

If you haven't tried this dish before you might want to make it from a packet first so you know the kind of thing
you should be going for.

Seasoning the soup is all important for this dish. If the soup is too bitter or sweet it will be unpleasant. Taste the
dish constantly and adjust the seasoning incrementally as you go.

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