Steamed Pork with Pumpkin and Yam Recipe | Easy Asian Cooking

This is a variation of Hakka dish with assemblage of sliced pre-fried pork belly, yam and pumpkin that are steamed in a full-bodied gravy sweetened by sugar and shaoxing wine and balanced by a savory counterpoint of fermented red beancurd (南乳) and fermented soy bean paste (豆酱). This savory sauce thoroughly infuses all three layers of pig skin, fat and lean meat after long hours of steaming that elevates this classic to new gustatory buds.

Here's another recipe for pork belly, so my poor reader, you will just have to 'pig out' with me! The picture above may not justify how flavorsome this pork dish is, but I'll wager it's among the most delicious.

The ingredients of steamed pork with pumpkin and yam (南瓜芋头扣肉) have some resemblances with Hakka steamed pork belly with yam (客家芋头扣肉), with additional pumpkin and fermented soy bean paste, but omitting Hakka nam yee red sauce. The pork belly is gelatinously tender, reminiscent of Hakka steamed pork belly with yam. The texture of the pumpkin is cooked just to tender, soft but not beyond mushiness, in contrast to the yam, which is way too much mushy after long steaming. Both pumpkin and yam add hint of sweetness to the dish, complement well with the savoriness of pre-fried pork slices which are smothered in the bath of fermented red beancurd (南乳) and fermented soy bean paste (豆酱) sauce mixture.

So, why still waiting? Get ready to pig out with this easy steamed pork with pumpkin and yam recipe (南瓜芋头扣肉食谱).

Ingredients :
5 cups oil for deep-frying
150g yam, peeled and cut into thick slices (芋头)
150g pumpkin, peeled and cut into thick slices (南瓜)
500g pork belly (五花肉或三层肉)
1 tsp dark soy sauce (黑酱油)
1 tbsp chopped garlic
2 tbsp chopped coriander leaves (芫茜)

Seasoning :
3 cubes fermented red beancurd (南乳)
1/2 tbsp fermented soy bean paste (豆酱)
1 tbsp light soy sauce (生抽)
1/2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp shaoxing wine (绍兴酒)
1 tsp dark soy sauce
250ml water

Method :
1.  Heat up oil for deep-frying, deep-fry yam until golden brown. Dish up and drain.

2. Rub pork belly skin with 1 tsp dark soy sauce and marinate for a short while. Deep-fry in hot oil until golden brown. Dish up and drain. Leave it to cool down and cut into thick slices.

3. Leave 1 tbsp oil in wok, saute chopped garlic and chopped coriander leaves until aromatic. Add in seasoning and bring to boil. Dish up.

4. Arrange pork, yam and pumpkin repeatedly in sequential order into a steaming bowl. Pour over the prepared sauce (from method 3) and steam over high heat for 1 1/2 hours or until pork belly is tender. Before serving, you may want to invert onto a serving plate lined with lettuce with sesame oil drizzled on top. To do this, place the serving plate over steaming bowl, then invert it quickly.

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Stewed Hakka Fried Pork Belly with Black Fungus Recipe | Easy Asian Cooking

This Hakka dish is a perfect mingling of chewy pork belly morsels and crunchy black fungus, slowly stewed in low heat in the bath of Hakka nam yee red sauce to please discerning appetites.

Once you laid your hands on Hakka nam yee red sauce (客家南乳酱) and kept it refrigerated, you just simply can't stop making a series of Hakka cuisines before the storage period of nam yee sauce due. After making Hakka Steamed Pork Belly with Yam (客家芋头扣肉) (Cantonese "khau yoke"), it seems like trigger an avalanche of desires to get my hands on its "cousin dish" - Stewed Hakka Fried Pork Belly with Black Fungus (客家炸肉) (Cantonese "zhar yoke"), which I'll lay out here. Here comes a good dose of Hakka fattiness. :-)

Similar to "khau yoke", the soul ingredient that make this "zhar yoke" an unforgettable flavor is five spice powder, but with a somehow stronger hint of five spice powder and more stew-meat in texture than in the "khau yoke". My mother-in-law usually deep-fry the sliced pork belly and store in fridge before Chinese new year and this makes the dish really easy by just stewing with the rest of the ingredients for reunion dinner.

Here's my in-law's Hakka "Zhar Yoke" Recipe (客家炸肉食谱). This legacy divulged by my sister-in-law.

Ingredients :

600g pork belly, wash and drain well, then slice thickly into an inch each or bite-sized pieces (五花肉或三层肉)

100g black fungus, soak in water till fungus soft and cut quarterly (木耳), pat dry with kitchen towels

1 egg (beaten), 4 tbsp plain flour (面粉) - for coating meat slices before deep-frying

5 cups oil for deep-frying

800ml water
1 tbsp chopped garlic

Seasoning :

4 tbsp Hakka nam yee (fermented red beancurd) red sauce (客家南乳酱)

1/2 tbsp dark soy sauce

light soy sauce to taste

Marinade :

4 tbsp Hakka nam yee (fermented red beancurd) red sauce (客家南乳酱)

1 tsp five spice powder (五香粉) - to make the meat more flavorful in addition to nam yee sauce

Extract of ginger+shallots+garlic in proportion of 2:1:1 tbsp (See method 1 below)

Method :

1. Blend ginger, shallot and garlic finely (approximate proportion should be 2:1:1) to become paste and extract out the juice mixture, set aside for marinade.

2. Combine pork belly with all the marinade above and marinate for at least 2 hours. Preferably marinate overnight in the fridge (wrapped with cling wrap) to allow sliced pork belly to absorb the marinade well.

3. Heat up oil to deep-fry black fungus (to exude aromas for the dish).  Dish up and sieve excess oil or drain with kitchen towels.

4. For marinated pieces of pork belly, dip in the beaten egg and then followed by plain flour, deep-fry until the pork belly slices become golden brown and crispy. This is to prevent the meat pieces from being too dry after deep-frying. 

5. Heat up 2 tbsp cooking oil in a wok or stock pot, saute 1 tbsp chopped garlic, add in 4 tbsp Hakka nam yee red sauce (客家南乳酱), 800ml water and bring to boil. Add in pre-fried pork belly pieces and black fungus, stir to mix well. Cover, simmer with low heat for 45 minutes or stew until the pork is tender. Add dark soy sauce and light soy sauce to taste. Garnish with coriander leaves before serving.

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How To Make Hakka Nam Yee (Fermented Red Beancurd) Red Sauce | Easy Asian Cooking

Fermented red beancurd (南乳 in Mandarin, "nam yee" in Cantonese or "ang tau ju" in Hokkien) has a distinct flavor that is often used in Hakka cuisine to impart saltiness and to assuage greasiness associated with massive consumption of multiple super fatty meats, such as Hakka steamed pork belly with yam (客家芋头扣肉) , stewed Hakka fried pork belly with black fungus (客家炸肉), nam yee spare ribs (南乳排骨), nam yee fried chicken wings (南乳炸鸡翼), fried fish in nam yee sauce (南乳酱干烧鱼) and etcera. You can find here how fermented red beancurd looks like, it's usually sold in glass jars in Asian market. Differ from typical fermented white beancurd (beancurd that have been fermented in rice wine) that goes well with porridge, fermented red beancurd made with red yeast rice (紅糟) and commonly used in cooking.

Many hawkers' stalls in Malaysia usually prepare Hakka nam yee red sauce in advance by combining fermented red beancurd with other pungent spices in order to cope with hoards of patrons with the rumbling stomachs. Similarly for home cooking, Hakka nam yee red sauce can be prepared prior to cooking Hakka cuisine, with storage period up to one month if it's kept refrigerated properly.

Variations to Hakka nam yee red sauce and cooking methods :

(i) Fried fish in nam yee sauce (南乳酱干烧鱼)

• Pan-fry fish until cooked and dish up. Heat up a dab of oil, stir fry minced meat until fragrant. Add in nam yee red sauce, water, fish and cook until the gravy thickened.

(ii) Nam yee spare ribs (南乳排骨)

• Mix spare ribs with nam yee red sauce, water and egg to marinate for three hours. Deep-fry in hot oil until golden brown and cooked.

Learn how to make Hakka nam yee (Fermented Red Beancurd) red sauce with below ingredients and spices, with truely simple steps providing you offer all the trimmings!

Ingredients :
8 pieces fermented red beancurd ("nam yee" 南乳)
3 tbsp chopped garlic
3 tbsp chopped shallots
1 tsp chopped ginger
2 star anise (八角)
5cm long cinnamon stick (桂皮)
3 tbsp oyster sauce
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp sesame oil
2 tbsp shaoxing wine (绍兴酒)
250ml water
50ml oil

Method :
1. Heat up 5 tbsp oil, saute chopped shallot and garlic until fragrant.
2. Add in the remaining ingredients and bring to boil until the sauce thicken.

After cooling down, Hakka nam yee red sauce can be kept refrigerated until one month for cooking use to create a versatile of dishes.

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Hakka Steamed Pork Belly with Yam Recipe | Easy Asian Cooking

This heavenly Hakka piggy dish is thoroughly infused with five-spice powder and nam yee red sauce, inducing sweet-savoriness. Pork belly is deep-fried and sliced thickly, then alternately "sandwiched" with deep-fried yam slices in steaming bowl and steamed over long hours. This Hakka classic cuisine is characterized by its saltiness (from the use of soy sauce in marinade and fermented red bean curd in nam yee red sauce), sweetness (from rice wine, oyster sauce and yam), greasiness (from multiple layers of fat), rich aromas (from the use of star anise and five-spice powder) and yumminess (from right blend of ingredients).

Chinese New Year celebrations is not complete without pigging out on savory dishes and my in-laws family have no exception until recently. This Hakka signature dish - "Hakka woo tau khau yoke 客家芋头扣肉" used to grace our dining table during Chinese Lunar New Year. Being a Hakka, my mother-in-law is good at reciting the recipe theorectically and my sister-in-law practically transformed it into a scrumptious meal, while hubby and I are the lucky buggers who eagerly partake and savor this irresistible Hakka dish. I was previously not that zeal in the culinary pursuit, hence not noting down the recipe mentally. My culinary adventures and passions only grow intensely and culminate after I ceased my industrial job to be a stay-at-home mom.

Hakka steamed pork belly with yam is a spectacular dish that I dubbed the dish as "killer pork"! However, daunted by its complexity, labour intensive, time-consuming and its glorious fat, I don't usually cook the dish. It was until recently that I stumbled across a cookbook featuring how to make Hakka nam yee red sauce and I found it is not as complicated as I first thought. Knowing that my hubby is a hardcore fan for this classic Hakka dish, I grabbed home this cookbook from Popular bookstores. I gave it an attempt after mustering up all the courage for having a written recipe narrating the nam yee red sauce and steamed pork belly with yam making process.

It is such a gastronomic pleasures when you sink your teeth into this bowl of this thoroughly sauced-soaked Hakka cuisine. Though there's a big dose of fatty pork, I just can't resist the temptation and simply put aside all the gnawing guilt and sit down to indulge on these pieces of piggy heaven! I know, I know, I must put an extra effort in reducing that disgusting bad cholestrol later on!

I structured the recipes into two sections, first the Hakka nam yee red sauce recipe and secondly Hakka steamed pork belly with yam recipe (which I will lay out here).

Hakka "woo tau khau yoke" recipe  客家芋头扣肉食谱

Ingredients :
1kg pork belly (五花肉或三层肉)
500g yam / taro (芋头)
5 cups oil for deep-frying

Marinade :
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp five spice powder (五香粉)

Gravy (Mixed) :
4 tbsp Hakka nam yee red sauce
100ml water

Method :
1.  Cut pork belly into 3-4 big chunks and mix with marinade ingredients. Deep-fry in hot oil until golden brown and pork skin firm up and crispy. Dish up and rinse with water. Keep aside.

2. Use a fork (or toothpick) to prick some holes on the skins to allow the pork to absorb gravy later. Cut into 1.5cm thick slices. The half-cooked pork belly enable more efficient slicing process, unlike wobble raw meat slicing.

3. Clean yam and skin. Cut yam into 1cm thick slices and deep-fry in hot oil until golden brown. Dish up and drain. Absorb excess oil with kitchen towels.

4. Arrange pork belly and yam alternately onto a steaming bowl and pour over gravy.

5. Steam pork belly and yam on high heat for 1-2 hours until yam and pork is cooked and tender (the longer the better, so as pork belly is tender enough to melt in your mouth). Serve hot with white rice.

Tips :
If you're particular about aesthetics and presentation, you can invert onto a serving plate lined with lettuce with sesame oil drizzled on top. Place the serving plate over steaming bowl, then invert it quickly.

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