Khao kha mu

A pork leg braised whole for hours in five-spice soy until the skin goes to jelly.

Pork, Egg. Not vegetarian — contains pork.

Ingredients

1 pork leg, about 2 kg, skin on
100 ml light soy sauce
3 tablespoons dark soy sauce
60 g palm sugar
4 star anise
1 cinnamon stick
1 teaspoon five-spice powder
1 head garlic, halved across
40 g ginger, sliced
2 litres water
6 eggs, hard-boiled and peeled
300 g pickled mustard greens

Method

BRAISED WHOLE, SKIN ON, AND NOT CUT UNTIL IT IS DONE. The skin is the point: four hours of gentle liquid turns it to something between jelly and glue that coats the rice. Cut into pieces first, the skin shrinks away from the meat and half of it ends up in the pot rather than on the plate.
Blanch the leg 10 minutes in boiling water, then drain and rinse it and the pot. Pork leg throws a great deal of scum and the braise is meant to be dark and clear, not muddy.
Scrape the skin with a knife after blanching and pull out any remaining hairs. They are far easier to see once the skin has tightened, and nobody forgives finding one.
MELT THE PALM SUGAR ALONE FIRST in the dry pot until it foams and goes the colour of an old penny, 3 minutes. That caramel is where the colour comes from -- dark soy alone gives you brown, not mahogany.
Both soys in, which will spit. Then the water, star anise, cinnamon, five-spice, garlic and ginger.
Leg in. The liquid should come about two thirds up; turn it every hour rather than adding more.
Covered, at a bare shiver, 3 hours 30 to 4 hours. A skewer should pass through the thickest part with no resistance and the skin should wobble.
Eggs in for the last 45 minutes, so they colour and take the spice without going rubbery.
Lift the leg out and rest it 20 minutes. Reduce the liquid by half, uncovered, while it rests.
Pull the meat and skin into thick pieces with tongs, over rice, with a halved egg, the pickled greens and a ladle of the reduced braise.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Thailand · All recipes