This is a family recipe for Assam (tamarind) Pedas Pork. Of course, I've trimmed out excess "calories" to make it a little more healthful...you know...for those who don't relish the thought of biting into a huge chunk of heart clogging piece of meat. The original recipe calls for pig trotters and I've replaced it with skinless pork hock (with this pic, I only "de-skinned" the parts that I could). The best part of this dish is that it can be "spiciless" till the end when you finish the dish with some green chillis! See, I've a little boy who's still not a chilli veteran. The chillis are added at the end coz it cooks real fast. I didn't have any green chillis (or jalepenos) at hand, so I used some Holland reds, but they didn't taste like the real thing or gave much kick, so I went and added some Thai chilli padi for some kick. But the fragrance that those green chillis gave was lacking...oh well...next time (when the moon's blue AGAIN!)
This dish is more like a stew and the gravy is thickened and reduced throughout the whole cooking process. The end result is a very succulent pork infused with all the flavors of the various ingredients. It sounds like a very heavy dish but it's not, it's light on the palate and also an appetite enhancer. Goes very well with white rice and some other small pickled side dishes, namely Achar. It also doesn't take a lot of work to prepare except for the pork, but can always get the butcher to do the "dirty" work. Thank heavens for Henckel knives!! ;)
And since this is a family recipe...I would keep it as such...;) All I can say is that it has tamarind in it with some other unexpected ingredients.....hehehe... Of course, as a stew, since pork trotters or pork hock (in this case), it takes some time to get the pork all tender yet not breaking apart into dry pieces when picked. This is a rather traditional Peranakan dish and like all Peranakan dishes, each family has their "secret" ingredient in addition to the general one that they give, never divulging that secret to anyone...LOL..except within the family.
3 comments:
MmmmMMm...so good with rice! Peranakan can make really good assam pedas because a friend of mine here is also Peranakan and she loves to cook assam pedas. Alamak, too bad secret recipe! :P
Thanks...yuppers, "secret" family recipe...;) I see a lot of assam pedas fish but hardly any for pork but I was assured that it's pretty common among peranakans...hehe..oh well...all along I thought we made it up...:D
Well, your family might have just made that up. I only said she made good assam pedas, thus far only tried fish and prawn, no pork yet. Hehe...
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