I have a lovely Thai cookbook which is simply called 'Thailand'. It is full of every kind of Thai food you can think of.... Street food, Curries, Snacks, Salads etc...
So last Saturday as we were having a day around the house I decided to indulge and cook something that requires time, and also something that I thought the children would also eat. After flicking through the book I found 'Muu Parlow', which is a Thai Braised Pork dish, and it takes about 2.5 hrs to cook, and it was one of the nicest smelling dishes I have ever made. However it took a bit of effort to source the ingredients.... it required a Pork Hock which I discovered is really difficult to get and I ended up ordering one from the local butchers. I did plan to make this a week beforehand but due to this fact had to wait a week (on the positive side its a cheap cut of meat - the whole hock cost £3.99)... also it uses something called Kecap Manis which is a Thai sweet soy sauce. Again could not find that in local stores but did find it to order over the Internet.
OK, so once I got all the ingredients together...
Time to start cooking. This was another easy one, which I loved! The most complicated bit was at the beginning when you have to blanch and then deep fry the meat before you start. The sauce itself was easy... dry fry the spices, then add stock, meat etc and leave for 2 hours or until meat is falling off the bone.
Oh and another thing is towards the end you add in hard boiled eggs, which I love. One of my favourite things is curry etc with boiled egg in. To accompany the meal I cooked rice and mange tout.
It was absolutely delicious. The sauce the pork was cooked it had a spice I did not expect, and it was just completely moorish! The kids did make a comment that it was spicy, but this was overcome as they both liked the taste, so I just ensured they had meat from the centre of the hock (therefore not coated in the sauce) however they both had an egg each which was covered. The rice and mange tout complimented it lovely.
I got the thumbs up from all the family and would make this again.... would I change anything, well yes 1 thing! It recommends everything is done in a wok. So you deep fry in the wok, drain the oil, then make the sauce and add the meat. However I found that my hock did not sit fully in the sauce and therefore was not as falling apart as I would have hoped, also the sauce reduced too much. To rectify this, I think once sauce is made next time I will put everything into the slow cooker, I may also consider getting 2 small hocks rather than 1 large one.
Highly recommend this one, but only if you like a bit of spice. Its not mouth burning hot, its about a medium.
#thaifood
#pork
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