Tomato baked Pork with Rice

I love going to this particular restaurant in Parramatta for my serve of tomato baked Pork chop with rice. Unfortunately their pork is extremely fatty and thick with flour coating and so for health reasons I decided to try and cook this dish at home with healthier alternatives. I have tried to recreate this dish many times and it always seems to be missing something in flavour. I tried different types of tomato and I tried different types of tomato sauce but I never seem to be able to hit that right note of flavour. Until last week Mr ITF came across a friend who kindly told him what the secret ingredient was. Believe it or not, it is simply milk. It made a world of difference and the balance of tanginess and richness was just right.


Do you ever wonder why the meat dishes at your favourite chinese restaurants is always so tender and flavoursome?  Well, for a start the meat is marinated for at least a night and it is tender because they use some type of meat tenderiser.  So I would usually marinate the meat overnight and it makes such a big difference compared to meat that has only been marinated for two hours.  To tenderise the meat I use baking soda to cut the enzyme. 

So readers, what will you be eating for dinner tonight?

Tomato Baked Pork with Rice

Serves 4 (in my case 2 because I love it so much)

• 300g of pork cutlets ( if you go to a Chinese butcher, it would be 4 pork cutlets)
• 1 enshallot or 1 small onion, sliced
• 1 clove of garlic, sliced
• 1 stalk of shallot, chopped
• 2 tomato (or 1 can tomato)
• 2 tablespoon (tbl) of sugar
• 2 tablespoon (tbl) of soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon (tbl) of chicken salt
• 1 teaspoon (tsp) of baking soda
• 1 cup of skim/full cream milk
• 2- 3 cups of cooked rice
• Shredded cheese (as much or as little as you like)


1. Marinate the pork with 1 tbl of sugar, soy sauce and chicken salt. Add the baking soda and half of the sliced garlic.  Let it marinate for as long as time allows. 

Marinated pork

enshallot - its more fragrant

2. Pan fried the pork. 3 minutes on each side in medium heat.  Leave it aside.

3. Heat a pan or a wok and 1/2 tbl of oil. Make sure its really heated before you add the enshallot, garlic and shallot. Mix it around for one minute and add the chopped up tomato.  Add the remaining one tbl of sugar and soy sauce.  Cook it for 5 minutes in medium heat.

4. Add the milk and cook it for another 3 minutes.  Add the pork chop and cook it for 3 minutes.  The sauce is suppose to be thick like the consistency of tomato sauce.  So add water if it is too thick or let it reduce down if its too watery.

5. Scoop the rice into a big oven safe dish and pour the sauce on top.  Sprinkle the cheese and put it under the oven grill for 5 minutes. 

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