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Thai Pork Belly Stir-Fried with Garlic and Broccolini Recipe (Pad Kana Moo Krob)

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Thai pork belly stir-fried with garlic and broccolini
One of the great things about cooking up a hunk of meat is that you can re-purpose it for a variety of dishes over the course of days. A case in point is the crisp roast pork belly from last week. Man, has it come in handy this week when I needed to put together quick meals. My husband and I couldn’t eat all 3 pounds of it at once so I made pork belly banh mi sandwiches from part of the leftovers. With the remaining amount of roast pork, I prepared this Thai stir-fry. I recently tasted this dish at Lers Ros and was instantly captivated by marriage of rich pork belly with a garlicky-spicy-savory-sweet sauce.

Lers Ros is arguably one of the best and most authentic Thai restaurants in San Francisco these days. It’s open till 2am, if you’re game to venture to the Tenderloin at those hours, or any hour for that fact. It’s worth it, I assure you. (If you know how to properly pronounce the name, please help the rest of the dining public with some phonetics. Update 3/21/10: Thanks to Leela, we now know how to say this. See the comments section below.)

My husband and I went to the restaurant for a reunion of sorts with my food friends, stylist Karen Shinto and photographer Penny De Los Santos. Journalist Scott Hocker, editor of TastingTableSF also joined us. Karen had read Scott’s mention of the fried pork belly at Lers Ros and she wanted to order it. Scott was delayed as he was biking over and as we waited for him, we couldn’t find the pork belly on the restaurant’s dizzying menu. When Scott arrived, we handed him a glass of wine and promptly asked him to find the pork belly on the menu. Alas, it was hidden under rice plate offerings. Look for item #62, Pad Kra Pow Moo Krob.



I was expecting a crispy deep-fried pork belly but the dish that appeared was really a stir-fry of roasted pork belly with lots of garlic, some ground chile and Thai basil. How clever of Thai cooks to cut up roasted pork and cook it up with some saucy seasonings.

With that leftover roasted pork belly in the fridge, I went about looking for the recipe. I hit pay-dirt in David Thompson’s Thai Street Food, a physically ginormous cookbook (about 8 pounds) that is available in the U.K. and Australia for now and will be released in the U.S. until late September.  Thompson had greens in his pad kana moo krob recipe, which I welcomed as it picked up the flavors from the simple seasonings, and provided nice textural contrast to the pork. Lers Ros was extravagantly about featuring just meat in their rendition of pad kra pow moo krob with the Thai basil , but it was admittedly for me, slightly off balance. The greens completed the preparation but it deviates slightly from what Lers Ros offers.  (Many thanks to Panya and Hsunchi for contributing their insights to this recipe!)

Recipe

Roasted Pork Belly Stir-Fried with Garlic and Greens
Pad Kana Moo Krob

With guidance from Thompson’s recipe, I devised my own, parboiling the
vegetable to ensure even cooking during stir-frying and adding fresh
chile heat as a back note. Here you are. Feel free to buy Chinese-style
roast pork for this.  Slender and tender broccolette, grown by Earthbound Farm, is a cross between broccoli and gailan with a sweetness that's somewhat like asparagus; it's grown organically and sold at markets such as Whole Foods.  I believe that broccolini and broccolette are interchangeable, if not the same plant with different cutie names. Regular broccoli or gailan would work too.

Serves 4

1 (6-ounce) bunch broccolette/broccolini, gailan or broccoli
2/3 pound Crisp Roasted Pork Belly or roast pork purchased from Chinese barbecue shop
1 1/2 tablespoons oyster sauce
1 1/2 teaspoons light (regular) soy sauce
1/4 cup water
1/8 teaspoon sugar
2 pinches of salt
1 1/2 tablespoons finely chopped garlic
1 or 2 Fresno or Japaleno chiles, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons canola oil
Ground white pepper

1. Trim and discard the broccolette ends, then cut it into2 to 3-inch lengths. If using gailan, you may need to peel the stems to make them tender.

2. Bring a pot of water to a boil, drop in the greens, and parboil for about 1 minute. Drain, flush with cold water and drain well. Set aside.

3. If the pork belly skin has softened and needs refreshing, put the whole slab of belly skin side down in a skillet or wok over medium heat for a few minutes. This will recrisp the skin. Check on it periodically. Remove to plate to cool slightly.

Regardless of whether or not you had to recrisp the skin, slice the pork into 3/4-inch-thick pieces. Now cut the pieces crosswise into chunky long pieces, each about the size of your thumb. Set aside.

4. Combine the oyster sauce, soy sauce, water, sugar, and salt in a small bowl. Stir to dissolve the sugar and salt. Set this seasoning liquid aside.

5. Heat the oil in a large skillet or wok over high heat. Add the garlic and chiles, and stir for about 30 seconds until the garlic has just slightly browned. Add the pork, stirring for 1 minute to warm. Add the greens, give the mixture a stir to combine, then add the seasoning liquid.

Cook, stirring constantly for 2 to 3 minutes, until the liquid is barely visible. Transfer to a serving plate, sprinkle with white pepper, and serve with lots of rice.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Yum! I own David Thompson’s book ‘Thai Food’ and have borrowed the Thai Street Food one from the library several times and have it on order again! Usually when it gets to this stage I realise I need to own the book.
    There is a new cooking show on in Australia, the runner-up of their Master Chef contest, is the host and the programme is a perfect foil for her personality. David Thompson was Poh’s guest on 17 Feb, scroll on this page to click on that episode:
    http://www.abc.net.au/tv/pohskitchen/video/#videoTop
    I found it very interesting to see and hear him, giving the reading of his books and the use of his recipes even more depth.
    This week the slot was given over to the paraolympics but Poh has a message on the site indicating that on Wed 24 March David Thompson will again be her guest.
    Regards, Robyn

    Reply

  2. Robyn,
    I’m glad that you concur with me on Thompson’s book. Thai Street Food is a commitment to own as it’s pricey and physically weighty. I lugged it all the way back from Australia. However, I’ve cooked a number of the recipes from David’s book and they turned out great.
    I met both David and Po in Sydney last year. I’m glad to know that Poh’s new show is up and running. I like her spirit. Greatly appreciate the link to her show!

    Reply

  3. You’re making me hungry right after dinner, Andrea. 🙂
    Lers Ros (loose translation -> excellent taste) is pronounced –
    Lurd: Rhymes with “hurt” but don’t roll or trill your R and go easy on the final D.
    Rod: Say “road” but make it much shorter and, again, go easy on the final D. Trill your R for extra excitement. 🙂
    The final S in most transliterations is the remnant of original Sanskrit spelling; it doesn’t have the English S sound. Yeah, the Thai language is fun.

    Reply

  4. Andrea,
    It can’t be Pad Kra Prow without Kra Prow 🙂 You need to have the Thai basil leaves in there for it to be called pad kra prow. I don’t have David Thompson’s book with me right now, but if he leaves out kraprow from his recipe, then that’s wrong.

    Reply

  5. I agree with Panya. Pad Kra Prow MUST have kra prow (Thai basil). There is another dish called Kra Prow Kai Tod (Fried Chicken Kra Prow). It’s basically fried chicken made into kra prow – with Thai basil leaves, that is.
    Actually, from your picture and from the recipe posted, it looks more like another Thai dish: Crispy Pork Stir-fried with Kale (Ka na moo krob).
    I’m surprised David Thompson doesn’t have kra prow in his kra prow recipe.

    Reply

  6. Leela — THANK YOU for clarifying how to pronounce Lers Ros. I’m practicing it right now.
    Panya and Hsunchi — Love it that you pointed out the errors of my ways. I took the name from the Lers Ros menu without doing a thorough translation check. One of the things that confounds me about Romanized Thai is that the spelling is inconsistent, and thus confusing. Ahem — my Thai is a touch rusty, to say the least.
    I just look at Thompson’s recipe again — he calls it pat kanaa muu grob. My mistake and I’ve renamed the recipe.
    So what you’ve revealed here is that there are two (maybe more) versions of this dish. So would/could the version with Kra Pow have vegetables too? Or would it be always be devoid of veggies?
    Love the fact that you’ve contributed your insights and we’re all learning here!

    Reply

  8. I’m also learning a lot from your blog, too. Traditionally, pad kra pow is made with kra pow only. No other veggies are added. But, sadly, you’ll find restaurants that add other stuff (carrots, baby corn…) to it in Thailand. Traditionalists, me included, thumb their noses at it. Others complain but eat it anyway. I call it Faux Kra Pow.

    Reply

  9. Just stumbled onto your website. In my experience Pad kra pow consists of basil, garlic, ground pork or maybe some shrimp, and lots of chilis. A personal favorite with mu krob is pad prik- I wish I had a good recipe to recommend.
    And since I’m here, do you or your book have a banh xeo recipe? So far none of the restaurants in town (Austin, TX) will make it for me.
    BTW I am not Thai, so anyone who thinks I need correcting, let me have it.

    Reply

  10. Hsunchi — Touche for your use of faux. My thought is this: I gotta figure out the fundamental/classic/representative version of a dish before I feel comfortable making it. That’s why I appreciate what you and Neela brought up.
    David — See my book, Into the Vietnamese Kitchen for a banh xeo recipe. I have two versions: one you soak and grind the rice and the other uses rice flour. Thanks for you contributions.

    Reply

  11. Hi! First time commenter here. I’m so happy to see some love for David Thompson here. His cookbooks are the only ones my mom (who is Thai) has ever recommended to me. Love your blog!

    Reply

  13. Oh my gawd, I can’t believe I’ve never been to this Thai restaurant in SF before. Obviously, I’ve been missing out. And kudos to Scott for biking over, and burning so many calories that he could eat four helpings of pork belly. 🙂

    Reply

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    Reply

  24. I did have fun, and I worked on it a little more one week night.
    I’ll tell ya if you ever have a baby, get a walker, Sadie has one and that’s what allowed me to do some work, she zipped back and forth around my feet while I painted!!!

    Reply

  26. I did this recipe on Saturday night, and it worked out great, thanks! the only difference is that I didn’t have time to leave the meat overnight so I was concerned that the skin would be too wet to crisp so I left out the oil on the skin side, but I did pour boiling water on it. It came up really crispy – (I also used your amended timings and used the grill at the end). My house smelled like a good Chinese restaurant! I used tender stem broccoli instead of the veg you suggested as I live about 20 miles from China Town, it worked well as a substitute.
    I will definitely be making this stir fry again, delicious, fatty treat 🙂
    DanLobster

    Reply

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