Slow cooking pork in salty bean paste sauce, was it babi ponteh?

Mum taught me how to make this dish.  Since then, I had been making this dish, over the stove-top, quite a number of times without realizing that it is actually a popular Peranakan dish called Babi Ponteh.  Since I started my slow cooking project, I have been slowly converting those stewing and braising dishes that I usually cook on the stove-top into slow cooking using my slow cooker.  This is one of those dishes.  

Mum's recipe for this dish is pretty simple.  Different cuts of pork can be used, but we usually go for the belly, or the pork shoulder butt.  Sometimes I'll use ribs, but that really takes a long time to cook, longer than the belly or the shoulder butt.  For the paste, the main ingredients are garlic and salted bean paste, sometimes Mum would add ginger and chilies.  Recently, Mum discovered that the flavor and sweetness of this dish can be further elevated and brought to life with a touch of miso paste and Shaoxing Huadiao wine. Other ingredients that find their way into our version of babi ponteh are beancurd and quail eggs.  The mixture of salted bean paste and garlic really goes well with beancurd and eggs.

On my wedding anniversary, I added this dish to my slow cooking ensemble.  By about 9.30am in the morning, this dish is already in my slow cooker on LOW, simmering away.  The total number of hours I used for this dish is 7.5 hours.  The first 6 hours on LOW and the last 1.5 hours on HIGH.  Is cooking this on the slow cooker better than on the stove-top?  The meat was really soft by the time we had dinner.  I wasn't busy the whole day watching over the pot (I wouldn't be able to do so on that wedding anniversary day anyway), topping it with liquid to prevent it from drying up and scorching my pot.  However, as I was busy with getting this dish out of the way and moving on with baking my surprise for the Hubby, I forgot to add dark soy sauce for color.  The meat came out pretty pale looking, as can be seen from the photos.  I really would prefer it to have a darker, tanner hue.  Furthermore, I think I added too much water in the beginning.  I was worried that liquid wasn't enough and the meat would not cook through.  But the meat cooked fine and shrank in size as it loses it's liquid while cooking.  So I ended up with a little too much sauce than necessary.  One strange thing though, the rind and fats tasted better when this dish is cooked on the stove-top.  Using the slow cooker, the rind and fats was stunningly soft but tasted a tad too porky for me.  I must remember to remove all fats and rind next time.

Mum's pork in salty bean paste sauce

That's the salted bean paste on the spoon.

Ingredients

800g pork shoulder butt

200ml water

6 cloves of garlic

1 small chili (I used chili padi)

1 large beancurd

1.5 tbsp salted bean paste 

1/2 tbsp dark soy sauce

2 tbsp oil

Seasoning

1/2 tbsp miso paste

1 tbsp Shaoxing Huadiao wine

Method

1. Cut the shoulder butt into large chunks.

2. Mash/Pound the garlic, chili padi and salted bean paste into a smooth paste.  I use my mini mortar and pestle to do the job.

3. Cut the beancurd into 6 large square pieces and set aside.

4. In a large fry pan, heat 2 tbsp of oil.  Place the shoulder butt, piece by piece into the pan.  Let the meat brown evenly, then push the meat to one side of the frying pan.

5. Add the paste prepared in step 2 and fry until fragrant over very low heat.  This will prevent the mashed salted bean paste from burning.  

6. Once the fragrance starts to waft into your nose, coat the pork pieces with the paste evenly.

7. Add water and dark soy sauce and bring to boil.  Off the heat and transfer the whole content into slow cooker.

8. Cook at LOW for 6 hours.  Once the 6 hours is up, move the meat to one side and add the beancurd.  Mix the seasonings together, add to the mixture.  Increase the temperature setting to HIGH, continue to cook for a further 1.5 hours (or less if the meat is adequately softened).

Notes:

- if decided to use quail eggs, add the pre-cooked eggs at the same time as the beancurd.

- think it is best to remove all fats and rind if using the slow cooker.  It was really porky.  Maybe browning the rind longer would help to remove the porky smell?  I must try this out again.

- Shallot and ginger are also ingredients used to make the paste to cook this dish.  Consider adding these two ingredients the next time I make this dish.