雞蛋圓，豬醋酸；新年添財又添孫!!!

As Chinese New Year is on this Wednesday (9th Feb), and since we don't get holiday over here in Australia for this festive season (yeah missing those long holidays in Malaysia, sigh...), and I going away for 3 days trip this coming weekend, so I've decided to celebrate the CNY big feast earlier at my place with friends. The big feast (团圓飯), is a must on the CNY's eve, where family get together, friends get together, colleagues get together to washaway the old year and ready for a whole new year. Since I am overseas all alone on my own, so I've decided to cook up this little something to share it with friends. It's one of my favorite dish, a very authentic Chinese Hokkien dish which my mum used to cook alot. I did cook this dish several times before and I have to say is probably one of my signature dish when I really want to impress people when over for dinner.

This time instead of eating with steamed rice, I've decided to go for the Shanghai style, serve them with steam buns and peking fried dumplings. This dish has no name, well not that I aware of it. Most people, even my mum will just called it "vinegary pork with eggs" (雞蛋豬肉醋）, the taste of this dish is very similar to 東波肉, a well known dish that u can get at 大人餐廳, in Sungei Wang, KL Malasia. Since is CNY season and I am feeling generous, so would like to share this secret recipe to all the food lovers out there and wish you all a Happy and Prosperous New Year. Just like what the Rooster will say this year... "BO~KWOK!!"

Vinegary pork with eggs recipe next page

Get about half kilo of pork fillet, diced it into cubed bite size, chopped 3 cloves of garlic, and slices about 10 leafs of ginger.



Now heat up a pot with oil, toss in the garlic and the ginger and fry for couple minutes, then in goes the pork. Now you might aware the pot is anti-nonstick, so you might have to keep stirring the meat while is cooking inside to prevent from sticking. Don't use a nonstick wok, because we need all the flavour stays in the pot, just like the Fight Club, "Whatever happens in the pot, stays inside the pot!"



Fry the pork till is all cooked outside and still tender inside, then pour water into the pot until double the volume of what is inside and let it stew.



Now time to make some hard boiled eggs. Use another pot, fills with cold water (cuz egg cracks in hot water, trust me), and then put in several eggs. Once the water starts to boil, turn the heat down, and let the eggs cooked itself in low heat.



Now here's the heart and soul of the dish: Sugar, White vinegar (cheaper brand the better cuz is more tangy), Soy Sauce, Chili Flake and the most important part, Star Anise (Illicium verum).


Star Anise (Illicium verum), we called it Eight Horns (八角） in Chinese. It is in a star shaped with 8 cloves. It has a very strong smell and it does release lots of flavour in dish, so you do not need a lot of them for cooking. For this dish, I've only used 3.



Once the eggs are cooked, peel the shell off, and put them inside the pot. Together, you can see I already added the Star Anise, 3 of them, about 3 table spoon of soy sauce, and about half cup of vinegar, and about 10 table spoon of sugar.


Another important ingredient, The Dark Soy Sauce. It is very dark normally you can't see through the bottle, and it should be very thick like honey. It has a kinda sweet salty taste to it.



Just a drizzle of the dark soy sauce, and you can see the instant tranformation, the whole pot will turn into darker gravy color, that's where the meat and the eggs will start sucking the flavour in. And add some Chili flake to spice it up a little bit. Now let it stew for at least 2 hours or more! The longer it stews, the tenderer pork gets. While is stewing, now we can move on to other tasks.



Making own dumplings just too much hassle while you can buy the authentic dumplings from Shanghai. You just need to find a Chinese supermarket and they will have lots of variety to choose from but I prefer to buy the Peking style dumplings, more authentic.


The instructions are on the back of the bag, so you can't go wrong. Look at them... nice golden brown crispy skin.... drool.....



Instead of serving the Vinegar Pork with steamed rice, I have chosen to serve with steamed buns instead. I've chosen the Silver Thread rolls and the Flower Rolls. Pete asked me, "What kinda flower did they use to make the roll?" and I said, "No, is called Flower Rolls because it shaped like a flower"...... or not.



The dish has been stewed at least 2 hours. You can see the meat and egg all dyed in brown color from the dark soy sauce and look sooo juicy. An egg broke apart and the york will melt and add some texture to the gravy.



Here you have it, a decent CNY meal, Vinegar Pork with eggs, served with steam buns, and side dish of Fried Dumplings. P/S: get a nice crunchy lettuce too, wash them, and try to keep the whole leaf intact as much as possible for wrapping the pork later.



Here's how you eat it: 1. Grab a bun, split them in half but still intact, put a leaf of lettuce inside, then top up with the vinegary pork meat. Yuummmm....



Well, I think I had a very happy customer here. Pete says "finger licking good."