This is one of the all time favourite street food in Bangkok. You can see it everywhere. The pork leg is braised for hours in the spices that it practically falls off the bone and extremely flavourful

Have it together with pickled mustard vegetables and home blend chilli sauce (recipe below).

Balanced it off with blanched vegetables

INGREDIENTSServes 4-5

1 pork leg, or other cuts of stew-friendly meat e.g. beef shank, lamb shank, dark meat chicken (see note*)
1 pork foot (optional)
3 Tbsp soy sauce
3 Tbsp oyster sauce
2 Tbsp black soy sauce
75 g palm sugar or rock sugar
6-8 cilantro roots (or 1/2 cup of roughly chopped stems)
5 cloves garlic
2 cinnamon sticks
2 star anise
1 tsp Szechuan peppercorns
½ tsp white peppercorns, cracked
10 slices galangal
2 shiitake mushrooms
4-6 medium boiled eggs (boil for 8 minutes)
Pickled mustard greens or another pickled vegetable such as sauerkraut, pickled beans, or pickled carrots
200 g. dark leafy greens, blanched or steamed (optional, to balance out the dish)

Chili Vinegar
2 thai chilies
2 cloves garlic
½ tsp sugar
A pinch of salt
White vinegar, ¼-½ cup as needed

To make chili vinegar: Put all ingredients into a blender, starting with 1/4 cup vinegar. Blend until smooth, adding more vinegar if needed to help it blend better.

* Pork legs have a lot of skin, if you don’t like too much skin and prefer a lot of meat, you can add extra skinless leg meat or pork shoulder.

INSTRUCTIONS

1. If the pork leg still has some hair on it, burn it off with a blowtorch or shave it off with a razor. Wash and dry thoroughly.

2. Sear the pork leg in a large sauté pan to brown the skin on all sides.

3. Add the pork leg and foot into a large stock pot, cover with water. Add soy sauce, oyster sauce, black soy sauce, and palm sugar. Simmer for 45 minutes.

4. Skim off any scum that has floated to the top, then add cinnamon, star anise, Szechuan peppercorns, white peppercorns, shiitake mushrooms, cilantro roots, garlic, and galangal. Cover and simmer for 2.5 hours or until the meat is fork tender.

5. 20 minutes before the pork is done, add the eggs and the pickled mustard greens and simmer for 20 minutes.

6. Remove the pork, mustard greens, and eggs. Using a mesh skimmer, scoop out all the herbs and spices and discard; alternatively, strain the sauce through a sieve.

7. Taste and adjust the seasoning of the sauce with more soy sauce and oyster sauce. If you want the colour to be darker, add more black soy sauce.

8. To serve, carve some pork from the leg and cut into bite-sized pieces. Place the pork on top of jasmine rice, along with the egg, chopped pickled mustard greens, and a little bit of blanched gai lan. Pour the sauce generously over the rice, and drizzle with some chili vinegar, if desired.