Home cooking Chinese foods vary depending on your dialect group. Almost everyone non-Chinese would have had Chinese food which are predominantly the Cantonese style of cooking or Szechuan style.

As such, the other groups of Chinese have their own dishes that are not readily available in many restaurants and are normal in home cooking or what is fondly known as ‘home cooked food’.

This dish is a favourite of my daughter’s and the ingredients that you add into it enhances the dish.

Some of the additional ingredients that are added into this dish are dried shitake mushrooms, black fungus, dried lily flowers, dried bean sticks, etc.

Ingredients: serves 2-3

400g pork collar

2 pressed tofu

3-4 hard boiled eggs

2 tablespoon dark soy sauce

1/2 cup soy sauce

water, about 1 cup or more to sufficiently cover the pork

1 cinnamon stick

5 cloves

1 star anise

6 cloves garlic (optional)

Method:

• Cut the pork collar into chunks.
• Cut each piece of tofu into 8 portions.
• Place all the ingredients into a pot. Ensure the pork is covered by the water.
• Bring to a boil. Allow to boil for about 10 minutes before turning the flame to simmer. It will take about 45 – 60 minutes to cook this dish.
• Half way through cooking, turn the tofu pieces & egg around so they can absorb the sauce.
• Served with white rice & vegetables.