How to Spring Eating on a Dime Bak Kut Teh (Pork Ribs Tea)

How to Spring Eating on a Dime Bak Kut Teh (Pork Ribs Tea) Delicious, fresh and tasty.

Bak Kut Teh (Pork Ribs Tea). Bak Kut Tea (肉骨茶) or Pork Bone Tea is a Chinese-Malaysian soup dish. Infused with herbs such as Dong Quai, cinnamon, star anise, and made with pork ribs, dried Shitake mushrooms, tofu puffs and garlic, Bak Kut Teh soup fills the kitchen with evocative scents. This recipe takes a couple hours of slow boiling but the end result is so delicious.

The name is derived from the Chinese name 肉骨茶 spoken in the Hokkien dialect, which means 'Pork Ribs Tea.' This soup, which literally translates to "Meat Bone Tea (肉骨茶)" from the Teochew language, is a deeply flavorful pork ribs broth that contains no tea (despite the name).

This pork ribs soup is intensely flavorful.

A concoction of spices like peppercorn, salt, star anise, cloves, cinnamon, and lots of garlic give Bah Kut Teh its complex.

You can cook Bak Kut Teh (Pork Ribs Tea) using 25 ingredients and 6 steps. Here is how you achieve that.

Ingredients of Bak Kut Teh (Pork Ribs Tea)

1. Prepare of Pork Soup Bone (Sin Guat).

2. Prepare of Pork Ribs (Pai Guat).

3. Prepare of Pork Shoulder (Jue Jiang).

4. Prepare of Pork Throttle (Jue Shaou).

5. Prepare of Chinese Herbs.

6. It’s of Sun Kee Ready Pack BKT.

7. Prepare of Anglica Sinensis (Dong Guai).

8. Prepare of Solomons Seal (Yuk Juk).

9. You need of Codonopsis Root (Dong Sum).

10. You need of Rehmannia (Suk Dai).

11. Prepare of Star Anise.

12. Prepare of Cloves.

13. Prepare Stick of Cinnamon.

14. Prepare of Fennel Seeds.

15. Prepare of Black Dates.

16. Prepare of Wolfberries.

17. Prepare of Licorice Root (Kum Chou).

18. Prepare of Ingredients.

19. It’s 3 of Bulbs Smoke Garlic.

20. You need 3 of Bulbs Normal Garlic.

21. You need 2 pcs of thumb sized Ginger.

22. You need of Seasoning.

23. It’s 6 tbsp of soy sauce.

24. Prepare 3 tsp of rock salt.

25. You need 1 1/2 tsp of crystal sugar.

The fall-off-the-bone pork ribs make for easy eating!

It also goes great with chilli with dark soy sauce.

HOW TO MAKE BAK KUT TEH?

Discard the water and use a small knife to scrape off any blood clots or scum stuck to the pork ribs.

Bak Kut Teh (Pork Ribs Tea) instructions

1. Bak Kut Teh herbs can be purchased from local Chinese herbal shop or super market. These herbs now comes with different brands. We mix a packet of ready made packet of mixed herbs in a sachet and picked some herbs from a local herbal shop for this. Some herbs make the soup black in color while some in light brown. Teo Chew BKT will be very light grey..

2. Boil all the pork bones and meat in hot water for 20 minutes to remove scums, oil and smell. Set aside..

3. Boil 3 litres of water in a pot with all the herbs and soup bone for 30 minutes..

4. Put in the rest of the pork meat, garlic and ginger into the pot and boil for another 20 minutes. Add in salt and soy sauce and boil for another 10 minutes..

5. Turn off fire. Let the pot cool down and keep in the fridge overnight. Alternatively if you have a keep warm thermos pot you can keep in there. This overnight process will marinate the herbal soup and seasoning into the meat..

6. After overnight, boil the pot. When the pot is hot, add in sugar. Adjust to taste. The soup should taste little salty and sweet. Let it simmer in slow cook for 3 hours and serve. You can add in other optional items such as tofu pok, emoki mushroom or vege. Goes well with white rice and soy sauce with garlic and chili padi..

The name Bak Kut Teh is literally translated from hokkien (dialect), which is meat bone tea cooked by using the meaty pork ribs simmered in a complex broth of traditional chinese herbs and spices.

Bak Kut Teh can be translated as meat bone tea or pork rib tea.

However, there is no tea in the soup.

Instead, oolong tea is often served on the side with the dish to counterbalance the meatiness and richness of the soup.

There are different versions of bak kut teh.