Braised Pomelo Pith （卤柚子皮）

INTRODUCTION

Whenever friends have wanted to get old traditional recipes that they do not know how to replicate, they will ask me.. They always said that they missed their late grandparents or parents cooking on certain dishes and they did not have a chance to get the recipe from them…They will ask for the recipe.

This is one of the most common recipe that friends requested from me.. They have eaten it before, they know it is a waste to throw the pomelo pith away but they do not know how to cook.. They will describe as a very nice dish that walked them down the memory lane.

Hmmm, unsure which dialect dish is that but I have never tasted it before.. I suspected. it is related to Cantonese cuisines since Hong Kong Facebook groups seems to recall such dish whereas Taiwanese food group have never seen the dish before Since there are request for the recipe, I tried to search for recipe and it seems there are quite a lot of recipes in the  Chinese website..

I tried and I seriously like it.. It is soft and flavourful. As to the flavour, you can choose the type of braising sauce that you want. Essentially, it was treated as a vegetable . You can cook in 1001 ways. Since I am still on my vegetarian diet, I have decided to braise it on a vegetarian sweet sauce. That goes well with the pomelo pith, in my humble opinion.

The preparation is not difficult but it take time and patience. I have expedite the cooking part by using pressure cooker to cook the pomelo pith. The challenge of this recipe is to get rid of bitterness associated with the skin.  My end product still have slight bitterness but I can take it as it is. I especially loved the texture.

If you do not know how to skin the pomelo beautifully, you can refer to this post: Pomelo Honey Jam (柚子蜂蜜酱）

---

WHAT IS REQUIRED

Servings: 6-8 adults

• 1 pomelo crust

Braising sauce

• 3 tablespoons of dark soya sauce
• 3 tablespoons of sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon of five spice powder
• 3 slices of ginger
• 1 medium piece of rock sugar

---

STEPS OF PREPARATION

• Wash the pomelo crust and skin off the pomelo rind leaving the white spongy pomelo pith.  Cut into big pieces and transfer to a pressure cooker pot. Add adequate water to cover the pomelo pith.

• Pressure cook the pith for 20 minutes . If you do not have a pressure cooker, you can boil over the stove until the skin can be pierced through by a chopstick.

• Drain and squeeze away the water trap in the spongy pith. Transfer this pith to a container of cold water. Soaked the partially cooked pith in cold water overnight. Change water 2-3 times. For every changes of water, ensure that the water trapped in the pith is squeezed out.

• In  a pot, put all the braising sauce ingredients and adequate water to cover the pith. Bring to boil. Cut the pith into desired sizes and put in the braising sauce. Turn the heat to medium and let it simmer for 10-15 minutes. Let the pith rest in the pot for at least one hour before servings.  Timing of cooking will depend on your desired texture of the pith.

---

CONCLUSION

Well, the basic recipe is shared in this post but what is most important is your braising sauce. The cooked pomelo skin is tasteless and it depends very much on your sauce. This recipe serves as a guideline, after pressure cooking the pomeo pith, you can either stir fried it in your style, or even braised with your favourite recipe. Meat can be added to enhance the taste and some recipes suggested to braise the pith with duck as well..There are also recipes that called for steamed pork ribs with these pomelo pith.  Leap out from this recipe, just take this as another vegetable and feel free to cook in the manner that you like.

Hope you like the post today. Cheers and have a nice day.

---

• For more recipes, you can refer to my RECIPE INDEX (updated as at 13 March 2015)  here and you can follow me at PINTEREST or visit the blog’s FACEBOOK PAGE to keep abreast of my future posts. Also follow me at INSTAGRAM or TSU, a new social network for some more personal sharing other than recipes.

• You can also join the FOOD BLOGGERS AND FOODIES UNITED FACEBOOK GROUP and FOOD PARADISE 美食天堂 to see more recipes. I am posting my daily home cooked food in the above Facebook Group daily. I would be more than happy if you can  post in the Group for the recipes that you tried from my blog.

• If you are a Pinterest user and you are interested to have more recipes, you can join or follow this Pinterest Board set up by me  where there are more than 2600 recipes worldwide and pinned by various bloggers: FOOD BLOGGERS AND FOODIES UNITED PINTEREST BOARD.