By Aida Azizuddin
Photography by : FriedChillies
Posted on : Tue, November 10, 2009 - 7:01:51 AM
2 Comments
My late Aunt, married to a policeman used to live in the police barracks. At the time, grocery shopping is not as convenient as today so most of the time the ladies there cooked from rations. This is one of the dishes born out of using what's available. There were always a lot of onions and dried chillies plus bottled and canned goods like sardines and soy sauce were plentiful.
This dish uses just a few ingredients and quite simple to make. It uses soy sauce to tenderize the meat and you basically leave it on a slow simmer until everything grinds down into a lovely black savoury-sweet gravy. My late Aunt swears by sweet soy sauce from the brand 'Kipas Udang' but any sweet soy sauce will work just as well. She also used a whole bottle of sauce for 1kg of meat. You can use less if you like but you won't have as much gravy. Also if you keep the meat marinated in soy sauce overnight, then it really breaks down the meat into tender morsels. Since this dish does not use coconut milk too, it can keep for much longer than curries or masak lemak so good for busy people. You can just make a big batch for the week.

"Everything grinds down into a lovely black savoury-sweet gravy"



Rezza
November 10, 2009 2:06PM GMT
Great dish.. ideas to veganize this recipe?
Honey Ahmad
November 10, 2009 3:14PM GMT
Hmm... there's a possibility that you can sub the meat with portobello mushrooms/ shitake since it gives the meatiness that this it needs. However you might want to use less soy sauce and maybe add a bit of vegetable stock. To add a bit of heft to the dish perhaps some potatoes as well. I'm thinking of a vegetarian pong teh which has that same onion-sweetish flavour to it.
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