Dutch

Babi Pangang

Ingredients:

Meat:

  • About 800 g Pork shoulder or ham
  • 400 ml water
  • 5 cloves garlic
  • 2 tea spoons sambal
  • 4 tablespoons rice wine
  • 5 tablespoons ketjap manis
  • 1 of 2 whole star anise
  • 8 whole Cloves (cengkeh)
  • 1 tablespoon ginger syrup
  • some grated fresh ginger
  • 1 tablespoon brown sugar or palm sugar
  • bit of salt
  • optional: a tiny bit of ve-tsin
  • Frying oil (sunflower oil)

Sauce:

  • 250 ml cooking fluid from the meat
  • some 1 cm pieces of ginger (djahe)
  • 1 tea spoon sambal
  • 6 tablespoons tomato ketchup
  • 1 tablespoon caster sugar
  • 5 tablespoons ginger syrup
  • 1 tablespoon Cornflower starch

And:

  • 1 jar of atjar tjampoer

Preparation:

Read the whole recipe before starting.

The pieces of pork should be sliced with a thickness of about 1.5 to max 2 centimeters as the meat will shrink a bit after cooking. In my picture I think I have used ham, but currently I always go for the shoulder as that gets you a bit more taste, as it is more fatty.

Use a pan large enough for the meat to go in. Add the water, the crushed garlic using a garlic press, sambal, rice wine, ketjap manis, star anise, cloves, ginger syrup and some fresh grated ginger, sugar and a bit of salt. Optionally you cloud add a little bit of ve-tsin, but that is not required. Stir the mixture a bit an then add the slices of pork. Then heat up the pan until it starts boiling, then lower the heat and let it simmer for some 20 minutes with the lit on the pan. After this turn the pieces of meat around and let it simmer for another 20 minutes. Then turn off the heat and let it all cool down with the lit on the pan. This should be done in advance, so do this in the morning of the day you want to prepare babi pangang.

Sauce:

Remove the meat from the pan and dry it with some paper towels, rest on a plate for frying. Now get 250 ml of the cooking fluid to act as the base for the sauce. You should only get the fluid, so without the star anise and/or cloves, but make sure to get some of the fatty substance in the sauce pan also. If cooled down enough you could see some fatty flakes.

Add the sambal, the tomato ketchup, caster sugar and ginger syrup and also add some 1 cm piece of fresh ginger. Stir around and let heat it up slowly. When heated up, get a cup and add the Cornflower starch with a bit of cold water, stir around so all the Cornflower is dissolved. Then add this mixture bit by bit to the sauce and check the consistency. If too thin add more of the cornflower water mixture, if too thick you could add some more of the cooking fluid. Then remove the 1 cm pieces of fresh ginger.

Into the frying pan:

Preheat the frying pan to 180 degrees Celsius, then add the slices of pork and let it fry for somewhere about 4 to 6 minutes but please check the meat while frying to see if it is crispy enough. Remove the meat when done and use some paper towels to get rid of access oil.

Get ready to serve:

Drain the atjar and spread it out on a serving dish, you should do this before you start frying the meat. Then, when you just removed the meat from the frying pan, slice the fried pork in thin slices and layer these on top of the atjar. When all the pork is sliced and layered, poor the pangang sauce over it so it covers all the meat. Now you are ready to serve the dish.

Serve with:

Babi pangang can be served with white rice, fried rice or Asian noodles.

Pork cooked in spiced water

Dish with sliced fried pork on top of a layer of atjar

Dish with babi pangang and sauce ready to serve

Babi pangang served with white rice