hong kong style baked pork chop rice

Of all the food I miss from home, probably what I miss the most lately is Hong Kong style food.  Baked pork chop rice was one of my mom’s favourite dishes and both my sister and dad love it too.  No surprise, there’s no Hong Kong style food here so I’ve decided to try and make this dish myself.  Generally I like to try and replicate things I’ve eaten in restaurants but I’ve always been intimidated to try Hong Kong style food because I can just never pinpoint what ingredients are in them.  But today is the day!  I can’t find any Hong Kong style recipes online that would make exactly what I would expect to get in a restaurant so here’s my version.

This dish has 3 parts:  the pork chops, the tomato sauce, and the fried rice.  Just to make things easy, I’ll break down the ingredients for each part.

Serves 3 – 4 ppl

Sauce:  1 cup chicken stock  /  1 can tomato paste  /  2 tbsp worcestershire sauce  /  1/2 cup ketchup  /  2 tbsp sugar  /  1/2 yellow onion  /  1 – 2 tomatoes (or 3 roma tomatoes)  /  2 tsp of cornstarch mixed with a little bit of water  / salt and pepper to taste

Fried rice:  ~ 3 to 4 cups cooked jasmine rice that has been refrigerated at least an hour or 2 or even overnight /  2 eggs  /  salt and pepper to taste  /  canola oil for stir frying

Pork chops:  3 to 4 boneless pork chops (I used pork loin centre chops)  /  1 egg  /  flour for dredging  /  ~ 1 to 1 and 1/2 cups panko bread crumbs  /  salt and pepper to taste  /  canola oil for frying

To top:  ~ 1/4 cup shredded cheddar  /  ~ 1/4 cup shredded mozzarella

For the sauce, chunkily chop up your onion and cook with a splash of canola oil over medium heat until starting to turn translucent.  Stir in your chicken stock, cornstarch mixed with a bit of water, worcestershire sauce, tomato paste, sugar, and salt and pepper.  Lower the heat and let it simmer with a lid on for about 10 minutes.  Cut up your tomato into roughly bite size pieces and toss them in and let it simmer for another couple minutes then remove from heat and set aside.

For the rice, I know there’s lots of different ways to make fried rice but this is the way I’ve always done it.  Put a couple of good splashes of canola oil into a wok over medium-high heat.  When the oil is quite hot, throw in your cold rice and stir fry for a few minutes.  Lightly scramble 2 eggs in a small bowl and season with a bit of salt and pepper.  Create a bit of a well in the middle of the rice and pour in the eggs.  Then just casually start stirring the rice into the eggs and stir fry all together for another couple minutes.  Remove from the heat and spread into either a 9 inch pie plate or a casserole dish.

Preheat the oven to 350F.  Now it’s onto the pork chops!  Pound the pork chops until they’re about 3/4 inch think (if you have a meat tenderizer, use that.  I just used a rolling pin.)  Fill a wok or large pot with about 5 cm or so of canola oil and heat over medium to medium-high heat to ideally 325 to 350F.  Set up everything for your breading (a plate with flour, a wide dish with your egg, scrambled, and a plate with the panko bread crumbs).  Season the pork chops with salt and pepper then one by one, dredge in the flour, then dip into the egg, then press into the panko crumbs.  Once your oil is ready, fry the pork chops for about 2 minutes on each side or until cooked through.

Cut each pork chop into 4 pieces and then scatter over the fried rice.  Pour the sauce over and then sprinkle the cheeses on top.  Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes and you’re all done!

That was quite a bit of effort but totally worth it.  I’m actually really pleased with how it all turned out and I can say it tastes pretty damn near exact to what I can get at my favourite Hong Kong style restaurant in Vancouver.  Rock says he loved the sauce and that it looked even better than what’s served in restaurants.  He’s already looking forward to having leftovers for lunch tomorrow.  Success!

UPDATE:  If you liked this recipe, you must check out my recipe for another super popular Hong Kong-style restaurant dish: baked portuguese chicken rice !!