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Home / Courses / Main Dish / Cincaluk Pork Stir Fry

Cincaluk Pork Stir Fry

By: 👩‍🦳 Linda · Published: 🖨 January 4, 2017 · Updated: 💻May 8, 2021 · 🗨 1 Comment

Recipe ▼

This Cincaluk Pork Stir Fry is one dish not easily found at the restaurants. It is deliciously fragrant, tangy, and appetizing. A must try!

This Cincaluk Pork Stir Fry is one dish not easily found at the restaurants. It is deliciously fragrant, tangy, and appetizing. A must try! | MalaysianChineseKitchen.com

Cincaluk Pork Stir Fry is a truly Nyonya (Straits Chinese) dish combining pork, lemongrass, chilies, tamarind, and cincaluk, a Southeast Asian ingredient. All these wonderful ingredients comes together to make this amazingly tasty dish with all the right notes – spicy, tangy, and full of umami flavor.

Cincaluk (Fermented Small Shrimps)

It is a relatively quick and easy dish to prepare but you do need to have the right ingredients. If you are living outside of Malaysia and Singapore, the good news is that many Asian grocery stores do carry lemongrass and tamarind concentrate. The only challenge is finding cincaluk.

Fortunately for me, they started appearing on the shelves of a few Asian markets here in Minneapolis. If it is unavailable in your area, the closest substitute I can think of is saeujeot (Korean salted fermented shrimps) which uses basically the same ingredients. I use saeujeot in making kimchi and will try using it in this dish one day.

This Cincaluk Pork Stir Fry is one dish not easily found at the restaurants. It is deliciously fragrant, tangy, and appetizing. A must try! | MalaysianChineseKitchen.com

Tamarind Concentrate

In case you are wondering, tamarind concentrate is actually asam jawa extract. Over here, fresh asam jawa is not as easily available and so I use tamarind concentrate that comes in plastic containers. If you prefer to use asam jawa, please see the notes in the recipe below.

Pork Belly or Sirloin

Pork belly is the recommended cut of meat in this dish but I prefer the leaner boneless sirloin chops. If you are using pork belly, you may want to cut it into thin slices. For sirloin, I think thin strips work better.

Similar Products Used in Making This Cincaluk Pork Stir Fry

This post contains affiliate links. Please read my disclosure policy here.

Asian Kitchen Carbon Steel Wok Stir Fry Pan, 12-inch
Classic Series Carbon Steel Wok, 14-inch
Stainless Steel Professional Wok Turner Spatula

This Cincaluk Pork Stir Fry is one dish not easily found at the restaurants. It is deliciously fragrant, tangy, and appetizing. A must try! | MalaysianChineseKitchen.com
Print Pin Rate
5 from 1 vote

Cincaluk Pork Stir Fry

This Cincaluk Pork Stir Fry is one dish not easily found at the restaurants. It is deliciously fragrant, tangy, and appetizing. A must try!
Author : Linda Ooi
Course : Main Course
Cuisine : Malaysian
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Total Time 30 minutes
Servings: 4
Calories: 382kcal

Ingredients
 

  • 3 tbsp vegetable oil
  • 8 to 10 shallots (thinly sliced)
  • 1 lemongrass (bottom 3 inches only cut into thin slices)
  • 2 cloves garlic (minced)
  • 2 red chilies (seeded and cut into pieces)
  • ½ cup cincaluk (fermented small shrimps) (130g)
  • 1 lb boneless sirloin pork (cut into strips) (450g)
  • 2 tsp sugar
  • ¼ tsp ground pepper
  • 1 tsp asam jawa / tamarind concentrate**
  • ½ cup water (120ml)
  • 2 green onions (thinly sliced)

Instructions
 

  • Heat vegetable oil in a wok or large fry pan. Add shallots and stir fry until light golden brown, about 7 to 8 minutes. Remove fried shallots but leave oil in the wok. Set aside.
  • Add lemongrass, garlic, and chilies. Stir fry for 30 seconds.
    Cincaluk Pork Stir Fry-7
  • Then add cincaluk and continue to stir fry for 2 minutes.
    Cincaluk Pork Stir Fry-8
  • Add pork, sugar, ground pepper, and tamarind concentrate. Stir fry to get the pork coated with the cincaluk.
    Cincaluk Pork Stir Fry-9
  • Pour in water and continue to stir fry for 3 to 4 minutes or until sauce thickens. Turn off stove.
  • Transfer to a serving dish. Garnish with fried shallots and green onions.
    Cincaluk Pork Stir Fry-10
  • Serve immediately with steamed rice.

Notes

**If you are using asam jawa (tamarind paste), rinse and soak 1 tbsp asam jawa in ½ cup (120ml) water for 5 minutes. Strain and use the juice. Omit ½ cup (120ml) water in Step 5.

Nutrition

Calories: 382kcal
Tried this recipe?Mention @MalaysianChineseKitchen or tag #MalaysianChineseKitchen

Serving Suggestion

Cincaluk Pork Stir Fry is best eaten with steamed rice. Make sure to cook extra rice so that you can go back for a second helping.

This Cincaluk Pork Stir Fry is one dish not easily found at the restaurants. It is deliciously fragrant, tangy, and appetizing. A must try! | MalaysianChineseKitchen.com

This Cincaluk Pork Stir Fry is one dish not easily found at the restaurants. It is deliciously fragrant, tangy, and appetizing. A must try! | MalaysianChineseKitchen.com
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Categories: 🗂 Main Dish, Nyonya, Pork, Video Recipes Tags: 📋 Malaysian Chinese

About Linda

Linda is a food writer and photographer who hails from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She now lives in Wyoming, USA. Her other blogs are Roti n Rice and Tea Tattler.

Malaysian Chinese Kitchen is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

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Comments

  1. Anne says

    March 7, 2017 at 7:12 am

    5 stars
    Thanks for sharing. I’m so gonna make this soon. I have a bottle of cincalok sitting in my pantry which I recently bought from the Asian market in MI.

    Reply

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