I hope no one is confused by the title of this post! Soy-free? Soy Sauce Pork without Soy Sauce? Say what? I will explain in a bit…
Tau Yew Bak (pronounced Tao Yew Bark) or Soy Sauce Pork is a classic Chinese Hokkien dish that I grew up eating. Traditionally made with pork belly, it is a rich dish made up of fragrant melt-in-your-mouth pieces of pork braised with a blend of dark soya sauce and light soya sauce, plus some aromatic spices such as cinnamon stick and star anise. The type of dark soya sauce used is caramelised and would impart a slightly sweet and savoury flavour to the dish. It is usually eaten with white rice or rice porridge alongside other vegetable dishes and the syrupy sauce (it’s not meant to be thick) would go really well with the rice grains. I love how the garlic becomes all nice and soft in their skins, it’s such a lovely treat.
I’ve managed to closely replicate the taste of the traditional dish and make it AIP-compliant by using 2 ingredients – coconut aminos (or soy-free coconut seasoning) and blackstrap molasses. In my AIP version of Tau Yew Bak, I decided to create a personal blend of aromatics to perfume the dish and I think it worked out pretty nicely. The clementine peel is easy to make at home, just keep the whole peel from a clementine and let it dry out naturally under sunlight or in a dehydrator or oven at a low temperature. I usually keep clementine peels to dry every time someone snacks on a clementine at home. Dried clementine peel can be kept frozen or at room temperature (if you live in a dry climate, that is). They add great flavour to many different recipes.
In my attempt to use more ‘exotic’ cuts of meat, I decided to use pork cheeks instead of pork belly and cook them in the Instant Pot pressure cooker. Highly adaptable, the dish can also be cooked on the stove top, in a slow cooker, or in a Dutch Oven. Pork cheeks are a really tender cut of meat and pressure cooking them gives them an incredible melt-in-your-mouth texture. I served the pork sliced and wrapped with seaweed sheets and vegetables. Think of a temaki/ handroll sans rice. It worked really well together!
Have you tried pork cheeks before? What other tender cuts of pork do you enjoy?
Ingredients (serves 4-6)
- 1kg/ 2lb pork (I used cheek, belly is possible too)
- 2-3 tbsp blackstrap molasses (use 2 tbsp only if you prefer a more savoury sauce)
- 3 tbsp coconut aminos/ soy-free coconut seasoning
- 6 cloves garlic, smashed lightly
- 1 inch ginger, peeled and thickly sliced
- 2 strips mace
- 1 clementine peel, dried (optional)
- 1 stick cinnamon or 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 140 – 160mL or scant 2/3 cup bone broth or water
- 1 tsp sea salt
Method (Using Instant Pot)
- Select ‘Sauté’ setting and once ‘Hot’ is displayed on the panel, add in all ingredients except for the pork
- Stir in the pork pieces and seal the Instant Pot with the lid
- Cancel the ‘Sauté’ setting and select ‘Manual’ setting
- Cook the pork for 20 minutes
- Once the pressure cooker beeps, uncover and remove meat from the pot and set aside
- Select ‘Sauté’ setting and allow the sauce in the pot to boil until the sauce is slightly thickened
- Slice pork cheeks into diagonal slices
- Serve garnished with coriander leaves and sauce spooned over
Method (Stove top)
- Heat a pot over medium heat and add all ingredients except for the pork
- Allow to heat up and stir to mix
- Mix in the pork, cover, and allow to gently simmer at a low heat for about 1-2 hours, stirring occasionally, or until meat is tender (add a bit of water if your sauce is drying out)
- Remove from heat, slice pork cheeks into diagonal slices
- Serve garnished with coriander leaves and sauce spooned over