🇲🇾 How to Make Bak Kut Teh

Craving Bak Kut Teh? On FoodNeverComes the food never actually comes — so here's how to make real Bak Kut Teh at home, in about 2 hr, with stuff you probably already have.

🛒 Ingredients

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• 1kg meaty pork ribs
• 2 whole bulbs of garlic, unpeeled, tops cut off
• 2 tbsp white peppercorns, lightly crushed
• 1 herbal packet (dang gui, cinnamon, star anise, cloves) or 2 tbsp mixed whole spice
• 2 tbsp light soy + 1 tbsp dark soy
• 8 tofu puffs, a handful of enoki, a head of lettuce
• you tiao (fried dough sticks) and rice to serve

👩‍🍳 Method

1. Blanch the ribs in boiling water 5 min, then drain and rinse them properly. Skip this and the broth stays grey and scummy for the rest of its life.
2. Start again with clean water, the ribs, both garlic bulbs, the peppercorns and the herb packet. Simmer, lid on, 90 min.
3. Add the soy sauces for the last 30 min only. Early soy makes the broth salty long before the pork is tender.
4. Tofu puffs in for the last 10 min, enoki and lettuce for the last 2.
5. Taste for pepper. It should be peppery enough to catch slightly at the back of your throat — that is the Klang style, and the point of the dish.
6. Serve with rice, torn you tiao for dunking, and a saucer of cut chilli in soy. Breakfast, traditionally, which tells you something about Klang.