Loong yoke/Bak Kwa

Home made loong yoke waiting to be grilled. yum!

There are so many names that this super yummy snack goes by but I know it as loong yoke, bak kwa or that pork square. Really. This is similar to jerky but much, much better. It's asian jerky!! There's more flavour and it's nice and moist. Mmmm. They're so good in a sandwich or just alone.

I've heard many stories about the lengths people will go to get their paws on these little squares of porky goodness. I'll even admit to smuggling a couple of kgs worth back with me - an act that is helped along by the fact that they now come vacuum packed. But, they've gotten bloody expensive and after finding out how easy they are to make, I will now have smuggling space for other goodies :)

Before: The marinated meat spread out before being dried.

After: It shrunk so much cos I left it in the oven for too long. oops.

I got the recipe from Lily Ng's site which is great in it's original form but there have been substitutions and adaptations (due to issues I faced) so here is the version I used:

Loong Yoke
Makes about 3 trays or 36 pieces

1 kg or about 2.2 lbs ground pork

Marinade:

1 1/2 tbsp fish sauce
1 1/2 tbsp soya sauce
175 - 200 gm sugar
1/8 tsp 5 spiced powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
1/2 tsp kam cho(licorice) powder
1/2 tsp white pepper
1 tbsp oil
2 tbsp rose wine/shao hsing wine

Season ground pork with the marinade and leave in the fridge overnight or at least 4 hours.

Preheat oven to 175 F. Oil the under side of baking sheet 17" x 12", put a chinese bowl of marinated pork on baking sheet and try to spread meat as thinly as possible to cover the whole sheet.

Bake in oven for 10 mins or until firm to the touch. Remove from oven and using a scissor cut meat into pieces. Meat is now ready for grilling or wrapped in foil and freeze until needed.

My experience:

Ingredients wise, this recipe is pretty flexible. The ground pork can be substituted for beef, chicken, turkey, etc but pork does have the best flavour. Also, marinating overnight is great but a shorter marinating time works just as well.

I don't have a 1/8 tsp so I just dumped some 5 spice powder in (prolly more than I should have) but it didn't affect the flavour too much.

Finally, the rose wine I found looked really dubious (it had stuff floating in it...ewww) so I got shao hsing which is a great substitute and gave the meat a great red colour without the use of the regular preservatives or food colouring.

As for the method part, I didn't use the underside of the pan, just fit it into the pan with parchment paper (for easier clean up/transfer) which saves a lot of trouble in terms of clean up because a lot of moisture tends to escape the meat. However, if you have a drip pan then do it the way she suggests because it gets you a drier result and you may not run into the problems I did below.

My oven temp doesn't go as low as 175 F so I put it as low as I could and hoped for the best. Important fact: a higher temp and the juices trapped in the pan will cook the meat!! Yeah, the top looked great but the underside was that greyish/brownish colour indicating cooked meat. But all is not lost. I just flipped it over (yay parchment paper!) and put it back in the oven. It eventually dried out but took longer than the instructions said it would (10-15 mins each side = 20-30 mins/tray).

I also managed to forget about one of the batches (I'm pretty absentminded sometimes) so one batch shrunk a lot. Oops. It's didn't do much to it but it was slightly drier, chewier and browner around the edges than the other trays and I didn't have to grill it at all.

Honestly, because of my technical issues and forgetfulness, it took longer than the 10 mins she said it would but that said, it sure beats the 6-12 hour drying time that american jerky takes. And it tastes almost exactly like the loong yoke from home. Mmmmmm. So, cheap, easy, tasty and very hard to mess up (despite my best efforts :) ) This one's definitely a keeper!

Edit: According to Lily, for a half sheet pan (12 x 17) use a cup/8 fl oz/240ml of meat and you will get the thickness right. There are some more tips from her in the comments so look there too. The next time I try this, I'll use the tips and tell you how it goes.

Mmmm. Three trays of porky goodness!!