First post: Bak Kut Teh

For my first post, I am showing you guys a really simple meal. BAK KUT TEH! That's pork bone tea in Hokkien I think (direct translation); it's actually pork ribs soup. Really yummy and peppery for the Singapore version, and herbal for the Malaysian version or so I've heard. Anyway, just buy the soup packet and follow the instructions. My partner loves bak kut teh so he buys a small box of these soup packets and bring them back to London every time he returns to Singapore. They usually come in boxes of 4 or 8 packets when you buy them from those famous bak kut teh restaurants like Founders or Ng Ah Sio and costs about SGD28 for 8 packets (that's the price for the Ng Ah Sio ones). You can buy the Ng Ah Sio packets online! That's because they belong to the Jumbo group now.

So here's how the soup packets look like. The Ng Ah Sio one is still in a box because we've yet to try it out. As stated above, if you did your maths, the "branded" soup packets would cost about SGD3.50 each. You can see in my picture, the little orange and white packet at the bottom, is "brandless". I got it at Ang Moh (a neighbourhood super/mini mart) and I'm quite sure you can get them at the wet markets too. It's half the price but it tastes about the same.

So yes, that's how the different soup packets look like. You can also see that ingredients and cooking instructions are similar for all three. I'm beginning to wonder if the same company manufactured the two "branded" ones since the wordings and structure are so similar!

 Ok, ingredients according to Ng Ah Sio:
1Kg pork ribs
1 soup packet
20 pieces garlic (approximately 1.5 to 2 bulbs)
1.8L water
1/2 tablespoon dark soy sauce

Instructions:

1. Rinse and drain pork ribs.
2. Place water, soup base, dark soya sauce and garlic in a pot and cook till boil. (should really be soy)
3. Put in pork ribs and continue to cook till boil.
4. Lower to medium fire and continue to cook for 35 minutes.
5. Turn off fire and simmer for another 20 minutes. (I think they meant to say turn off fire and cover for 20 minutes, don't think you can simmer without any heat)
6. Ready to serve.

That's all!!! These are the ingredients and instructions from the soup packet. I don't always follow them strictly =) The following is my way.

I usually buy my groceries from the Tesco express just downstairs. Depending on the day, they have decently fresh groceries (most other times, lots of fresh food are near expiry or expired). Otherwise, we would go to Waitrose in the mall for really fresh groceries! Most of the supermarkets here have deals like 3 for 2 (you get three for the price of two!) and I would usually save money by buying them. I don't need 3 packets of 800g pork ribs in a day, but it can be frozen and stored up to a month from date of purchase! I do that with chicken as well but not steak because I think frozen steaks aren't nice. Just remove the meat from the freezer and leave it in the fridge (remember to put it on a plate or something as it might leak, you wouldn't want to create cross contamination!) the night before you want to cook it or place it out on the counter on the morning itself. I know the ingredients said 1Kg of ribs, but whatever, 800g is close enough =) that's what I love about cooking, you don't always have to follow the recipe closely. Not the same for baking though, that's why I don't exactly enjoy baking.

Ok, on with cooking.
Boil some water that is enough to cover the ribs (just judge with your common sense).

While you are waiting for the water to boil, prepare the other ingredients, mainly the ribs and GARLIC!

Rinse and drain the ribs (you don't have to do that if you get these pre-packaged ones from the supermarkets in UK, because they are usually clean already but I still do it anyway). Should only take a minute.

I usually keep these trays that come with mushrooms to use it as a discard tray when I'm peeling stuff like garlic and onions. Really handy.

Garlic! Choose whichever kind you like. I'm just gonna use the normal ones or as Waitrose calls them - Glorious garlic.

20 pieces (I think they meant cloves) of garlic! Those scattered pieces are leftovers from another bulb, so is that deformed one.

Peel the garlic. You don't have to if you don't want to, it will come off at the end anyway and sometimes float to the top, but I like peeling some. For easy peeling, just cut the ends off. Don't cut all the way down such that you cut the skin at the bottom as well, stop pressing down when you feel that you've cut the garlic but not the skin at the bottom and then pull the skin away. The bottom piece of skin should come off.

Alternatively, if you garlic is stubborn, crush them by pressing on them with the blade of your knife. Makes the skin come off much easier.

If you can't be bothered to peel the whole bulb of garlic. Just cut it right through the middle.

You may have to use some strength since the stalk in the middle (I've no idea what's that called) can be quite tough. This is what you'll end up with. If you're counting, there's around 13 cloves here.

Just remove the outer layers of skin like so. You can skip this too and just throw it in with the skin, but don't just throw the whole bulb in! You have to cut it through the middle so that the flavour of the garlic can be released.

This is what I ended up with.

Now, your water should be boiling.
In case you don't when it is that water is boiling, here's a picture of it. Wait for the "strong bubbling"!

Once it's boiling, put in ribs. It should stop the boiling since the ribs are at a much lower temperature thus lowering the temperature of the water (what am I doing, Science lessons now? lol).

Bring it back to boil. Cover with a lid so it will go back to boiling point faster.

Once it's boiling, you should see this. You may even see this foam before it starts boiling. That's scum. I believe it's all the oil and fats from the pork. The darker coloured blobs would be the blood/bone marrow/whatever oozing out from the bones. Pour all the water away even though it smells real good and make sure none of it sticks to the ribs. Alternatively, you can just scoop out the scum and continue using the soup base. Personally, I like pouring away everything. This step is not included in the instructions on the packet and I do it because my mum taught me to do so. Also from experience, the soup would feel and taste much oilier if this step was skipped, and the soup would look murky. I do this when I make chicken soup too!

This is what your ribs should look like - partially cooked.

Wash your pot of all the scum and fill it with 1.8L of water. Once again, the amount of water doesn't have to be exact, can range from 1.5L to 2L.

Then throw all the ingredients in (except for the ribs)! This is how the soup packet actually looks like.

Don't forget our dark soy sauce.

This recipe calls for half a tablespoon of dark soy sauce,

But since I don't have half tablespoon measurement, I'll just use 1 teaspoon and half teaspoon. Alternatively, 3 half teaspoons can be used!

In the dark soy goes. I find it too dark for my liking actually. Usually I only put a few drops (may be equivalent to 1 or half teaspoon). I dip the spoons into the water to wash away all traces of dark soy, makes sure I don't waste a single drop and facilitates washing =)

Now just cover and bring to a boil like so. 

Then lower to medium heat (it should still boil, just not as violently) for 35 minutes. Have it covered all the way so the liquids are contained in the pot and doesn't evaporate, or else at the end you will have half the pot left! According to the recipe, after the 35 minutes has passed, turn off the heat and leave it cover for 20 minutes. I usually lower the heat further, such that it's simmering (small bubbles) and leave it like so for as long as I can, then turn off the heat and let it stay covered for awhile, so that the meat and soft bones (or are they tendons?) on the ribs are much softer.

While you were waiting for the bak kut teh to cook, WASH UP whatever there is to wash! This way, you don't have a pile of dishes to do at the end of your meal. 

TADAH! This is the end result! Cook some rice and boil some vege to go with it! I will do a post on boiled vege the Chinese/Cantonese way (or so I think) next time!