FOODlog #95: Mustard Greens with Pork Belly

My mum cooked us one of her favorite hometown dishes last week. It's a Hokkien dish that uses mustard greens as it's primary ingredient accompanied by a meat often pork, chicken, or duck. If you get this from stalls outside they will use meat that has been roasted to boost the flavor of this dish. So if they are using pork they'll use roasted pork or if they are using duck, they'll use roasted duck.

Since this is homemade, we simple used non roasted meat to make this which is equally as good if not better since we get to season it to our preference.

The ingredients used are mustard greens, pork belly, slices of dried tamarind (assam keping), lemongrass, garlic, and dried chili. For the seasoning, you'll need soy sauce, oyster sauce, dark soy sauce, and salt to taste.

First you'll need to blanch the pork belly in boiling water to remove any scum from the meat so that the end result of the dish is you get a clear and clean tasting stew. After boiling the meat for about 10 minutes, remove it and wash it under cold water.

In a pot, add some oil and lightly saute the aromatics like the lemon grass, dried chili, and tamarind slices. After a couple of minutes, add in the mustard greens, water, the blanched and cleaned pork belly, all the seasonings and a whole garlic bulb.

Cook this for about 45 minutes to an hour until the pork belly is fork tender and season to taste at the end if it needs any adjustments.

Serve this with white rice and you have yourself a scrumptious meal. A super simple dish that's surely to please your family or your friends.