Malaysian
Bak Kut Teh ("Pork Bone Tea"). I believe this is a Malaysian Chinese invention because there is no equivalent Chinese dish that I am aware of. This is a herbal soup made from pork bones and it is really easy to make if you don't try to overcomplicate it like I did.
Normal recipe: throw in spice/herb packet, pork bones, garlic, soy sauce. Boil for one hour and serve.
My recipe: add everything except spice packet cold water. Boil for 4 hours, adding herb packet in the 30 min. Filter and discard all solids. Trim all fat from pork ribs then boil for another hour.
I made two versions - a more "normal" version, and a fancier version which I tried to make the world's first Bak Kut Teh consomme (with an egg white filter). Bak Kut Teh is a common man's dish, and the soup is slightly murky. You can see in the photos that my soup is perfectly clear:
So what did it taste like? The consomme captures all the flavours of the soup, as you would expect. But it is lacking in the thickness and slightly fatty mouthfeel of the normal version. Both of us preferred the normal version.
I like the flavours of "Yok Choy" (in Cantonese, "Medicine Vegetables") - a combination of various "medicinal" roots, seeds, bark, and so on. It is slightly bitter and really fragrant. I don't believe in all that Chinese Medicine pseudoscience about balancing heat and cold, but I believe in the flavours which are delicious. I typically make mine with twice as much "Yok Choy" that the typical recipe calls for, and I boil it less so that I evaporate less of the fragrant compounds. I also remove the pork bones and substitute it with nicer pork for eating, typical restaurants will serve you the pork bones.
Bak Kut Teh is usually served with white rice, but I decided to serve it with
yam rice. It has diced yam, shiitake mushrooms, dried prawns, ginger, shallots, garlic, and is flavoured with soy sauce, oyster sauce, a bit of sugar, some chicken bouillon powder, and soaking liquid from the mushrooms and prawns. Fry the yam until golden, then add ginger, shallots, garlic, and dried prawns. Then add the uncooked rice and the remaining flavourings. Transfer into a rice cooker and cook. Top with fried shallots and spring onions:
You can see how fluffy the rice is. Nailed it!
