FollowI had a sudden craving to eat braised pork belly with soy sauce and star anise the other day. But I found out that my bottle of organic soy sauce in the fridge wasn’t enough to prepare braised pork belly. Plus, I had some carrots, tomatoes and eggs that had been sitting in the fridge drawer for over a week already. With all these ingredients on hand, I had a brainwave and switched menu to Babi Pongteh / Pork Pongteh instead!
Babi Pongteh is a Nyonya dish, just like Ayam Pongteh. It is best cooked using pork belly with its strips of fat in between the layers of meat. But I’ve never been a big fan of pork skin or any fats but I still buy them as this dish needs the fattiness (collagen? lol!) to give it the nice thick stew consistency for the sauce. I’m happy with eating just 30% of the lean pork.
My Babi Pongteh consists of pork belly and pork ribs. Cass has a phobia of seeing thick fat pork or chicken skin, thus I bought some ribs just for her.
For recipe of Babi Pongteh, you can follow my recipe for Ayam Pongteh, which I cooked just a week ago. The only difference is that I did not add potatoes but added hard-boiled eggs. I stewed the hard boiled eggs with the pork for about an hour, in low flame.
I also added unchopped garlic, in addition to lots of chopped garlic and onions. I love eating stewed whole garlic, which is soft and aromatic.
With the left-over Babi Pongteh from dinner, I blanched some vermicelli and veggie and boiled some eggs for the girls’ lunch the next day…
Above – Babi Pongteh with vermicelli. Smoothie of the day – black grapes + orange + pineapple.
And it tasted even better the next day. This dish is heaven! It goes really well with just about anything — rice, vermicelli, instant noodles or bread. Try it and you’ll love it 😉
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