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:
- 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
- Fry onions, garlic and ginger in a little oil until soft, then add back the cooked pork meat.
- Add in the Kecap Manis, sugar and water, bring to the boil, then turn down the heat to simmer.
- 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.
- Simmer for 30 minutes or until the sauce has thickened
- Add lemon juice and pepper right at the end
- 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!
