Recipe: Babi asam pedis - Spicy pork in tamarind sauce

Babi asam pedis is a delicious Indonesian pork dish, soaked in a spicy, sour tamarind marinade. It's traditionally served as a side dish.

Ingredients

• 500 g / 1 lbs lean pork meat
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 teaspoon sambal Ulek
• 2 teaspoons cornstarch
• 1 cm / ½ inch ginger root
• 40 g / 1.4 oz pressed tamarind pulp (sold as blocks in oriental stores) to make the tamarind sauce
• 6 spring onions
• 3 red chillies
• 3 tomatoes
• 3 tablespoons kecap manis (sweet soy sauce)
• oil
• a pinch of salt

Directions

1. Cut the pork into thin slices.
2. Put the tamarind pulp into a bowl, add 200 cl hot water, let it soak for a few minutes, stirring once in a while.
3. Sieve the mixture, pressing as much pulp as possible through the sieve.
4. Crush and chop the garlic into small pieces, peel and grate the ginger root.
5. Add the crushed garlic, grated ginger, salt, sambal Ulek and cornstarch to the tamarind mixture.
6. In this, let the pork slices marinade for at least one hour.
7. Stir-fry the pork in a wok for 5 to 10 minutes, until the meat is brown, then remove it from the wok.
8. Chop the spring onions, chillies and tomatoes.
9. Stir-fry the spring onions and chillies for 3 minutes, then add the pork, tomatoes and kecap manis and heat it through.

Serve hot.

Back to Indonesian recipes