ADD and I love pork innards. You know - large pig intestines, small intestines, pig maw, pig ears, tendons, as well as pork belly and trotters - all braised to tender perfection in a highly fragrant soya sauce. Today few food stalls offer pig innards for S$6 or less per plate. If they do it is only for a few miserable morsels, insufficient to quell our voracious appetite. The few that do charge $6 or less per plate usually aren't able to compete - the innards remained tough and chewy. Worse - with an offensive odor! Which apply to many stalls we patronized. Never mind the high price. But rubbery tendon and intestines. And smelly to boot? Forget it!
Talking about hawker fare and food courts, it's a wonder many have sprung up over the last few years serving mediocre hawker fare. Yet charging audaciously high prices e.g. S$6-8 for a small bowl of pork innards or a few morsels of offal on a place of darn cold rice. Few vendors on this island republic seemed to remember happy customers equate good business. Dissatisfied customers? Over-priced fare? Tasteless food? "Why bother?" - they gave you that quizzical look, question unasked. With 4+ million people and 1 million foreign workers, crammed and bursting at the seams on this tiny red dot, they get away with it!
So it was with more than a tinge of regret and nostalgia (and many sigh's) that I reminisced about Uncle Wong (?) at the old Maxwell Road hawker center. His stall was acknowledged as the best pig offal stall on the island with its juicy, tender, richly brewed pork innards - large intestine, stomach, small intestines, tendon, including pork trotters and sometimes pork belly - in a deliciously rich broth at a most reasonable $4-6 per bowl in the 90s. He stopped his business several years ago when the food centre was torn down for renovation. When the refurbishment was completed in 2001 the pork innard food-stall did not reopen. Uncle Wong was reported to have retired from the business, with no one to take over. "It's very tiring to do this business", he said in an interview.
What a pity. His pork innards was the best, and I mean the best in all of Singapore! No other stall, bar none, came close. We know because we tried many stalls in our attempt to find the successor. After several years, it remains an elusive search. Perhaps an exercise in futility?
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Sometimes I wonder why thinking of pork innards makes me hungry suddenly and salivate so much? Why the fascination? Is it nature or nurture ? In the genes? Why do certain foods have such hold over us? I can't fathom it.. hmmm, interesting, isn't it?
Well, if I can't find any stall offering pork innards that tingle and make my taste buds dance, why not cook it myself? Now, thanks to Echo's Kitchen, I may be able to!
Today I am trying out Echo's braising sauce for pork intestines for the first time. I'm now 2+ hours into braising the starter broth.
Already I can detect from my desk a wonderful aroma emanating from the bubbling braising sauce in the kitchen! The aroma is more tentative and subtle than strong. But the aroma is heavenly and tantalising! Maybe it's too soon to say, but I am quite certain Echo's braising sauce will turn out to be the definitive braising sauce for pork innards that I've been searching for. After all, she said she froze and kept using her braising sauce for 2 years already and will not trade it for anything in the world! IIRC, I once saw a TV documentatry on Japan Hour about a famous Japanese chef who kept brewing his braising sauce on the stove for 20+ years with no stoppage, using it daily to braise his much-loved fare. The longer it brewed the better it tasted, just like Echo said.
Here's Echo's recipe, edited and shortened:
1 tsp Chinese Five spice
1 Black Cardamom
20 Sichuan Peppercorns (花椒）
1 Cinnamom Stick
2 Bay leaves
1 tsp Fennel seeds
3-5 Cloves
1 Star Anise
1 tbsp of Hoisin Sauce (KWH brand)
1/4 cups of fish sauce/soy sauce (used Tiparos fish sauce)
1 tsp Salt (used 3/4 tsp)
3-4 small pieces of rock sugar
1 inch of ginger
1 whole stalk of Spring Onion (tied in a knot)
10 cups water
Place all the above ingredients in a deep claypot/stock pot with 10 cups of water. Bring it to a boil, then turn down to low flame. Cover on, simmer on low heat for another 30-35 min. Filter out all spices. The stock is ready.
Note: Filter the stock and keep it in a big jar in the freezer. Next time you want to braise pork innards, simply make a small batch of new stock and add the old stock. This way your braised stock will be better each time you use it. Mine is already 2 years old, and I will not trade it for any other sauce in the world!
Oh dear - hahaha - I seemed to have forgotten to add the Five-Spice powder and bay leaves in the braising starter sauce! *knock head* Sigh... how will that affect the sauce or the offal? I will taste the pork intestine after it is done. Depending on the taste outcome I may add the 2 bay leaves and 1 tsp five-spice powder to the sauce and brew it for a further 1-2 hours.
Verdict: Hey, the flavor was rich, the aroma enticing! Even without the five spice or bay leaves. Should I add these in a repeat trial? As regard tenderness, the intestines turned out too soft for my palate, a result of my prolonged simmer, about 45 min!
.. to be continued.
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