These Baked Garlic Pork Rissoles have a nice elastic texture, achieved from the ‘slapping’ technique, and if you love garlic then they’re right up your alley. I like to serve them with lots of XO sauce, but you can always just give them a good splash of soy sauce or chilli sauce. I like to call these the ‘rissoles of the East’.
This is dish that I like to cook in a muffin tray. The pork mince cakes will not only cook faster in the individual muffin holes, but this also enables you to keep the portion size in check. Not to mention that these are super duper, easy breezy to make.
Makes: 6 rissoles
Ingredients
- 500g minced pork
- 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 10g salted radish, rinsed (see note)
- 1 egg, beaten
- 2 tablespoons light soy sauce
- pinch white pepper
- 6 teaspoons vegetable oil
- XO sauce, as dressing
- handful coriander leaves, roughly chopped
- handful fried shallots
Method
Preheat the oven to 220°C. In a large mixing bowl, combine the pork, garlic, salted radish, egg, soy sauce, five spice and white pepper.
Pick up all the mixture in one hand and then slap it against the side of the bowl for five minutes until the meat is sticky. This technique is to break down the meat fibres, so that the pork mince will have a nice elastic texture once cooked.
Divide the mixture into six equal portions. Have ready a six-hole muffin tray. Place one portion into each hole, pressing down to fit tightly in the holes. Drizzle a teaspoon of vegetable oil over each mince cake, then bake in the oven for 20 minutes.
Remove from the oven and transfer the pork mince cakes to serving plates. Drizzle with a generous amount of XO sauce and sprinkle liberally with coriander leaves and fried shallots. Serve with steamed rice as a meal.
Note: Salted radish is a preserved vegetable that usually comes in a sealed packet in Asian grocers. Ask your Cantonese-speaking shop owner for ‘choy bo’. You can also substitute with white cabbage.
Recipe from Have You Eaten? by Billy Law
Food has always played a key role in Malaysian-born Billy Law’s life. In his home country it’s not uncommon to greet each other by asking “Have you eaten yet?” instead of “How are you?” When Billy migrated to Australia in 1996, he took his inquisitive palate to a whole new culinary world. As well as cooking dishes from home, he also started experimenting with the flavours of his adopted homeland. The juxtaposition of two different cultures has allowed Billy to submerge himself in an endless combination of Eastern and Western cuisines. Have You Eaten? showcases Billy’s passion for cooking through his favourite collected recipes from both worlds – from traditional Malaysian-Chinese Nyonya recipes such as Chinese roast pork belly to contemporary Western-style dishes such as braised beef cheeks in Pedro Ximinez, and Vegemite cheesecake.
Published by Hardie Grant Books.
Also read: Macaroni and Mince Bake
