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Look what my sister made - old school Sea Cucumber Pork (Hai Sem Bak)

I have been wanting to post this since Chinese New Year i.e. Feb 2018!

Hai Sem Bak, or translated from Hokkien to English - Sea Cucumber Pork - is an important and 'grand' dish to serve at our Chinese New Year reunion dinner.

 Every year, my mother devotes about one week to prepare and cook this dish. The actual cooking time also takes several hours. On top of this, the dried sea cucumber is expensive.

Surely, any recipe with these two headers below will scare away 90% of readers.
Preparation time: 1 week

Cooking time: a few hours

This is the final dish, garnished with broccoli and red chilli. Old school, heritage dish. Very Hokkien and Teo Chew too, I think.

Sea cucumber served with broccoli


Garnished with a nice red chilli.

My contribution to this dish is to procure the dried sea cucumber way before the Chinese New Year shopping rush. Prices are better and the sea cucumber is already with my mother, for her preparation, regardless of the timing of my trip home. In Dec 2017, I managed to buy 1 kg at S$380. I think this is a little above average grade in size and texture. You gotta trust the shop keeper at some time, when you don't know better. Job-speak: sme subject matter expert.

1 kg of dried sea cucumber S$380 Dec 2017. Expensive food.




Re-hydrating the dried sea cucumber is an onerous task. And some people cannot stand the "sea" smell.
Soaking and very low heat re-hydration process over 4-5 days.

Pork trotters, pork belly, pig tail.

 Video_stirfrySeaCucumber 

Video_stirfrySeaCucumber2

Video_blanchSeaCucumber


Draining the blanching water from the sea cucumber.

Preparing the sea cucumber for the next step - stir fry.


Drained sea cucumber.




Drained sea cucumber.

Blanched pork trotters.

Blanched belly pork.

Garlic, ginger, shallots

Fry garlic, ginger, shallots and pandan leaves till slightly burnt or rather, charred.

Stir fry sea cucumber with garlic, ginger, shallots and soya sauce. Add pandan leaves for fragrance.



I spy pandan leaves again.

Almost ready for the final cook-up when all the components are mixed together and then simmered till soft. Note: Don't cook too long or all the sea cucumber will disintegrate into the gravy.

Look at all the sea cucumber.
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