Babi Kecap recipe

Babi Kecap, which means pork in sweet sauce, is another of our favourite Balinese meals. Pork is common in Bali, but not in Indonesia being a muslim country who don’t eat pork. The flavour is based on the famous Indonesian sauce Kecap Manis – sweet soy sauce, which gives a lovely sticky sweet but savoury dish. This is a modified recipe of my own liking. Try it and see if you like it too. 

Ingredients:

  • 500g pork (the fatty cuts are often used but I like to use a trim version)
  • 5 shallots, finely sliced
  • 2-4 garlic cloves, crushed and sliced
  • 3cm fresh ginger root, finley chopped
  • 30g dark sugar (palm sugar if you can source it) (less if you don’t want it too sweet or if using regular white sugar as this is more sweet)
  • 1/2 cup kecap manis
  • 2 cups of water
  • lemon juice
  • flour
  • Vegetables like mushroom, capsicum, and green beans all go well with this dish.

Method:

  1. Coat the diced pork with the flour. Fry in a little oil in a shallow fry pan until browned. Remove from pan on paper towel
  2. Fry onions, garlic and ginger in a little oil until soft, then add back the cooked pork meat. 
  3. Add in the Kecap Manis, sugar and water, bring to the boil, then turn down the heat to simmer. 
  4. If adding vegetables it depends on the individual vegetables cooking time. I add mushroom at the beginning as they hold well on cooking, and capsicum in the last 5-7 minutes, green beans in the last 2-3 minutes. Or to your liking.
  5. Simmer for 30 minutes or until the sauce has thickened
  6. Add lemon juice and pepper right at the end
  7. Serve with steamed white, red or brown rice

Some recipes add in grated nutmeg, the locals do this too. I find it hard to source, although if you had nutmeg powder this might do the trick, however I hardly notice the difference with or without! 

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