Bak Kua (Chinese Pork Jerky)

Recipe: Bak Kwa (Chinese Pork Jerky)自制肉干 (Rou Gan)

Yield: 500g

Source: Go2Wellington

Ingredients

500g fresh ground pork 100g hot dogs / ham (minced) 110g castor sugar 1½ TBSP fish sauce 1 TBSP soy sauce 1 TBSP ShaoXing rice wine 1 TBSP cooking oil ½ tsp. pepper

Basting (optional) 1 TBSP oil 2 TBSP honey * Just mix together oil & honey.

Preparation
1. Mince hot dogs.	2. Put ground pork in a mixing bowl. Add all other ingredients except hotdog and basting. Mix evenly.	3. Add minced hot dog to the mixture in step 2. Mix well.
4. Line baking pan with aluminium foil (shinny side faces down). Press sides on foil to get shape of the pan. Lightly grease foil with cooking oil. Remove foil carefully and avoid pressing on the sides to maintain approximate shape of your pan.	5. Spoon about 3 TBSP of ground pork mixture to the center of the lined pan. Loosely cover ground pork mixture and aluminium foil with a large piece of cling wrap. Roll out ground pork mixture to about 0.2cm thick. Add more ground pork mixture as you roll if needed. Take out some ground pork mixture if it is too thick.	6. Repeat step 4 and step 5 to finish up the remaining ground pork mixture. Preheat oven to 350oF. Bake at 350oF for 12 minutes. Remove pans from the oven and drain off any excess oil or water if exist. Turn each piece to the other side. Baste the top surface with prepared basting once and pop back into the oven. Bake for another 5 minutes or until meat is cooked.
7. Turn each piece to the other side, baste top surface once and return to oven to GRILL for 1 to 2 minutes. Repeat this step until pork jerky turn into desired color. When done, turn off the heat and leave pork jerky sit in the oven for 10 minutes to slightly dry off. Remove pork jerky from oven and let stand cool.	8. Cut pork jerky into serving size. Let cool completely before storing in an air tight container.

Notes

Add extra 20g castor sugar to mix with the ground pork if you are not using basting. Basting prevents pork jerky to turn too dry and give it a nice shinny look. Store pork jerky in an air tight container at room temperature for up to several weeks. Beware when using a toaster oven. Aluminium foil can cause overheating of the oven and cause fire. Read the manual of your oven about safety warning regarding metal foil beforehand.