What
is bah kut teh and what is so special about it? Literally translated the name
means 'meat bone tea'. It is actually a soup cooked with pork bones and a
variety of herbs which is supposed to provide nutrients for a healthy constitution.
This Hokkien dish originated in Klang and it was breakfast for the coolies who
loaded and unloaded boats along the river. In the old days it was called
bah kut soup but a guy called Lee Boon Teh made it popular by serving tea with
the dish. The tea is supposed to neutralize the fat so that it reduces the
feeling of bloatedness. His regular customers started calling it bah kut Teh or
Teh's bah kut and eventually became known more generally as bah kut teh ('teh'
being the Hokkien pronunciation of the Chinese character for 'tea'). He started
selling bah kut teh during World War II from a push cart under the bridge.
After the bridge was bombed by the Japanese he moved his bah kut stall a few
streets over and, eventually, into a shop house. In the sixties his son moved
his father's business back 'home' under the bridge, to the corner shop where it
still occupies. It is ideal for
confinement because of all the herbs and especially if you add some extra dong
kwai
Ingredients
The
meaty part of a pork leg. The fat gives the soup the oomph
About 5 pieces of dong kwai, 1 white
and 1 brown garlic cloves
Nowadays there are many
prepacked bah kut teh spices so try out the different brands until you find one
that you like best. Each packet contains 2 sachets and how much you need, will
depend on the amount you are cooking.
Put in the garlic, dong kwai and both sachets of the bah kut teh herb
Add 2 tbsp oyster sauce, 1 tbsp dark soya sauce and ½ tbsp light soya sauce. Cover and simmer.
Blanch
the meat in boiling water to remove the scum
Throw
away the dirty water and rinse all
the pork pieces thoroughly to remove any scum that is stuck to it.
Put the pork into the
prepared soup and bring to boil then lower the heat and simmer for 3-4 hours until
the meat is cooked.
Serve
with cut red chilli in soya sauce, rice with fried shallots and yew char kueh
You can add other ingredients like pig stomach,
mushrooms, quail's eggs etc
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