Hainanese pork chop
Hedy Khoo | The New Paper | Fri Nov 30 2012
Do you love Hainanese pork chops?
Do you long to bite into that savoury fried meat covered with crisp, fine-textured bread crumbs?
If you do, now is the time to make your own.
Doing it yourself will ensure that it hits your plate when it's at its crispiest.
Ms Christina Liang, 60, a cashier at a shipping firm, shares her recipe handed down by her late father who worked as a cook for the British during colonial times. When it cameto this dish, he was the expert.
Her father later became a chef at the now defunct Adelphi Hotel in the 1960s before being head hunted to work at Singapore's first Russian restaurant, Troika, in the 1970s.
Says Ms Liang: "After World War II, my parents were hired by the British. My mother was employed as a housekeeper, while my father wasthe cook."
It was during this stint that her father started to cook Hainanese pork chop, the localised version of the popular Western food.
Ms Liang says: "The special taste in the seasoning comes from using sauces like Worcestershire. The Hainanese cooks used it in the seasoning giving it that 'Western' flavour."
Ms Liang's love for cooking was influenced by her father's passion. She pickedup cooking when she was just 12 as her mother was busy working. At that time, she was staying with her married sister - who is 20 years her senior.
Hainanese pork chop and chicken pie were some of her father's signature dishes and she learned to cook them by watching him.
Her mother was also adept at cooking.
"In those days, there wasn't such a thing as a recipe. The older generation cooks had no recipes. They cooked by experience. I observed how my father and mother cooked, then I would try cooking the dish myself. They would taste it and tell me if I got the taste right or wrong."
Cooking by instinct was enforced in her parent's kitchen.
"When I was trying to learn from my mother, I would sometimes stop her so that I could use a drinking glass to measure the amount of flour or sugar. She would scold me saying that's not the way to learn," she recalls with a chuckle.
At home she still uses rough measurements but was kind enough to give me more accurate ones for the recipe below.
A tip from Ms Liang for making bread crumbs: She makes her own using leftover bread by toastingand crushing it.
When making the crumbs,MsLiang says it is best to use the traditional Hainanese bread but it can be substituted with any plain white bread.
Ingredients
PORK CHOPS
500g boneless pork chops
5 slices of white bread
2 eggs
Cooking oil
MARINADE
3 tbsps light soya sauce
1 tbsp A1 sauce
1 tbsp HP sauce
1 egg white
Dash of pepper
GRAVY
2 tbsp A1 sauce
2 tbsp HP sauce
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
200ml water
2 tsp of sugar
1 potato, cubed, pre-cooked by frying or boiling
1 large white onion, sliced
1 large tomato, cut into sections
150g green peas
2 tsps cornflour (along with 2 tbsp of water)
2 tbsp cooking oil
Method
FOR PORK CHOPS
Slice the pork about 0.5cm-thick.
Tenderise the meat by pounding it using a meat mallet or the back of a chopper. Flattening the meat also shortens the cooking time.
Place the pork slices in a bowl and add the marinade. Allow it to marinate for at least 30 minutes or even overnight for more flavour.
Toast the bread and crush it to make breadcrumbs.
Before frying, pour the beaten eggs onto a plate or into a shallow bowl.
Dip both sides of each pork slice in the beaten egg.
Coat each side with breadcrumbs, patting to get an even layer. Gently shake off the excess breadcrumbs.
Heat your wok or pan with two tablespoons of oil over medium-low heat.
Fry each breaded pork slice until golden brown and crisp.
Add more oil if needed.
FOR GRAVY
Heat oil and fry the onion.
Add the sauces, sugar and water and bring to a boil.
Add the tomato, peas and potato.
Allow to boil until the peas are cooked through.
Mix the cornflour with the two tablespoons of water.
Stir into mixture to thicken the gravy.
Serve the pork chops with the gravy on the side or drizzled on top.