Mum bought some delicious Bak Kut Teh today. Its a Malaysian classic that's a favorite among the Chinese here. Its a savory pork bone broth soup packed with strong flavors from many Chinese herbs and spices.
This was done expertly and the broth was delicious. Some places have the ratio a bit off and the soup is either not flavorful enough or if too much herbs and spices go in to make it more flavorful, it turns out bitter instead. So there is some skill needed to produce a balanced tasting Bak Kut Teh.
We had 2 different types of preparation of the Bak Kut Teh. The more common soup version and also the dry version that has chili in it.
The soup one we had tonight was really good and had pork belly, pork shoulder, the stomach, intestine, tofu, beancurd skin, and also enoki mushrooms. The inner organs were expertly prepared without any unpleasant odor. It was delicious and well done. They also provided a garlic and birds eye chili soy sauce as a dip.
The dry Bak Kut Teh also had the same items in it without the tofu and mushrooms but with chili and the gravy was dark, sweet and savory, and sticky almost like a barbecue sauce.
We also got a vegetable side dish which is super common and available at any Bak Kut Teh shop you visit - stir fried iceberg lettuce with oyster sauce and fried shallots.
Are all this with steamed white rice. What a delicious dinner!