Chinese babi pangang, crispy pieces of meat with a delicious sweet sauce, like you can get at a take out at the Dutch Chinese. Fastfood, homemade and delicious.
Like the Chinese omelette with sauce (Foe Yong Hai) that I made in the context of my bucket list last week, I had another recipe I'd love to make at that list. A Chinese Babi Pangang recipe, with crispy pieces of meat with a delicious sweet sauce, which you can obtain from the Chinese. A kind of fast food so. Is it also a fast food if you make it yourself? In terms of preparation it certainly is, because you don't have that much work to do.
Just to get that crispy on the Babi Pangang, you should grill for half an hour. But then you do have a slimmer version than the Chinese, where they deep fry the Babi Pangang. And drive up and down to the Chinese, that takes half an hour to, right?
Jump to:
What is Babi Pangang?
Babi Pangang is an Indonesian recipe, which literally means grilled pork. That's how it's often prepared in Indonesia is. But in the Netherlands we can get it at our local Chinese, therefor the Chinese in the title.
Over a wood fire pork it's grilled until done. In the Netherlands usually bacon pork steaks are used and sometimes gammon steak are used in the preparation of the Babi Pangang. Which are first baked and then deep fried. The meat is topped with a sweet and sour sauce.
📖 Variations and substitutes
This is a really delicious recipe for Babi Pangang. And hereby a few variations and substitutions when you want to prepare it an other way:
- I use gammon steak, but you can also use thick slices bacon or pork neck or pork shoulder chop. If you want a crunchy babi pangang, use pork belly. The latter has a much longer preparation method and is of course also a bit fatter.
- If you can't get any sambal, use sriracha instead.
- For more spice, add ½ to 1 ½ teaspoons extra sambal (or sriracha) to taste.
💭 Top tips
- Bake the tomato paste for at least 2 minutes until it smells sweet. If you skip this step, the tomato paste will have a sour taste.
- If you want a more crunchy variety, just like with the Dutch Chinese, you can achieve it as follows. Use for this as meat (belly) bacon or pork neck. Cut the meat into thick slices. First you marinate the meat for at least 2 hours. Then you cook the meat for 40 minutes in vegetable stock to which you add the marinade. Heat the deep fryer to 360 degrees Fahrenheit (180 degrees Celsius) and fry the meat for 2 to 3 minutes until crispy. Drain on kitchen paper and serve with the sauce.
- Serve with Atjar and Bami goreng or nasi.
🔪 Preparations
A good preparation makes the job a lot easier. And when you're in a hurry this steps can be done in advance.
- Finely chop the onion. You can keep this in a closed container for two days.
- Crush the garlic and add oil until it is covered. This way it will stay in the refrigerator for a week.
- Cut the gammon steak into strips and keep covered in the refrigerator for up to 2 days.
- Make the marinade and marinate the meat in it. This is possible up to 1 day in advance.
- You can make the sauce up to 3 days in advance. Keep it covered in the refrigerator. If your sauce (without meat) is left over, you can freeze it for up to 2 months in an airtight container in the freezer.
Budget-friendly
- Replace the sherry with white wine or 1 tablespoon of vinegar. Because you only use a small amount in this recipe, it will not change the taste much.
- Use bacon instead of gammon steak.
⏲️ What to do with left overs?
- You prefer to make the meat on the day when serving. Otherwise it will lose its crispy texture. But if you want to store it anyway, store it without sauce and warm it up in the oven at 200 degrees Celsius. You can keep it in the refrigerator for up to 2 days and in the freezer for up to 2 months. But the structure will change slightly after reheating.
- Store the leftover Babi Pangang sauce up to 3 days in the refrigerator or freeze it up to 2 months.
🥘 Other delicious recipes
- Also easy and really delicious: fried rice with egg and garlic (vegetarian)
- Filled omelette with chicken and veggies (skinny)
- Fried wontons with beef filling
- Stir-fry chicken with veggies and noodles
Did you make this recipe? Tag #byandreajanssen via Instagram. I love it when you make one of my recipes and I’m looking forward to looking it up. Video recipes can be found on my YouTube channel. Don't forget to save my recipes on Pinterest so you can find them easily next time. See you soon!
📖 Recipe
Chinese babi pangang recipe
Equipment
Ingredients
Grilled babi pangang meat
- 2 onions chopped
- 1 clove garlic minced
- 3 tablespoons ginger syrup
- ½ teaspoon sambal or sriracha
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce sweet ketjap
- 1 pound gammon steaks
- 3 tablespoons oil
Sweet babi pangang sauce
- 2 ounces tomato paste
- ¼ cup soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons sherry
- 1 tablespoon vinegar
- 4 tablespoons curry
- 1 cup water
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
Instructions
Prep
- Slice the onion and garlic finely.
- Cut the steak in 1 inch thick slices.
- Make a marinade with half the chopped onion, garlic, ginger sauce, sambal and 2 tablespoons soy sauce.
- Rub the meat with the marinade.
- Get everything ready for the sauce. Put the sherry, soy sauce, vinegar, brown sugar, currya and ¾ cup (200 ml) and put it in one bowl which you set aside
Making
Grilled babi pangang meat
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
- Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a pan and fry the meat until brown. It doesn't have to be done yet.
- Put the meat in a baking dish and place it in the oven. Let it roast for 20 minutes.
- Then turn on the grill and grill the meat for 15 minutes.
Sweet babi pangang sauce
- Meanwhile heat the oil in a pan and fry the remaining onion.
- Add the tomato puree and stir for two minutes until it begins to smell sweet.
- Add the sherry, remaining soy sauce, brown sugar, vinegar, curry and ¾ cup (200 ml) of water and mix well.
- Bring to the boil.
- Whisk the cornstarch with the remaining water to a paste and mix that into the sauce.
- Let the sauce simmer for a few minutes. It will thicken sligtly.
- Remove the meat from the oven and pour the sauce over the meat.
- Serve with fried rice or noodles.
Thank you, I surely can recommend it!
Thank you Taleen, I'm sure you're going to enjoy this one!
Thank you for your sweet words. The Indonesian kitchen is very popular in the Netherlands and one of my favorites. I've got great childhood memories from them and still enjoy it very much.