Honey & Ginger Flashed Pork With Surprises [served with] Fried Rice With Surprises
Introduction: This delicate dish is neither Asian nor Western. I am a westerner with a love of Asian food so I decided to whip something random up from the food available in the pantry & fridge. The result was a delightfully delicate and flavoursome quasi-Asian meal based principally on pork scallops infused with honey, garlic, ginger and Asian sauces and flash fried with crispy delicate vegetables, all served with fried rice with hidden surprises. I recommend a light fruity wine to complement and accompany this truly novel gastronomic treat.
This dish also features very little fat and no added salt plus only a small amount of healthy vegetable oils. In addition it can be mostly prepared in advance and the kitchen cleaned up before the final denouement. The vegetables far outweigh the meat. It's a vegetable dish with meat rather than the other way round, despite the title. That seems to be the IN Thing!.
Prepare Rice & Rice Surprises:
Rice: Put a coffee mug of rice into a pot of boiling water. Wait seven minutes and then stand by to take it off just before the rice becomes al dente [cooking finishes later]. Drain in a colander and rinse with hot water. Let it drain. Add one flat tbsp shrimp paste to drained hot rice in a bowl. Mix thoroughly by hand. Put in refrigerator for a few hours to dry completely.
Surprises: Reserve a cup of frozen minted peas in the freezer. Fry a handful of diced bacon with some small−chopped shallots and transfer to the dish of surprises to be added to the rice later. Cut the kernels off two fresh cobs of corn and add them to the surprises dish. Also fry an egg − break it and mess it around in the pan so it spreads out but don't scramble it. When cooked slice it to 1 cm squares and add those to the surprises. Chop some cooked prawns and add to surprises. Cover dish of surprises and set aside.
Prepare Meat for Cooking:
You can use a quality cut of beef or pork or lamb (or anything else − whatever you've got). I used a 400 gm fillet of pork. Cut pork across the axis of the fillet, into disks/scallops about 3/4 cm thick. Put them in a flat non-metallic pan/dish (e.g. a flat serving dish). Add three minced cloves of garlic, a tbsp grated ginger, a tbsp of sesame oil, two tbsp of olive oil, three tbsp light soy sauce, four tbsp honey, one tbsp rice vinegar. Mix all this thoroughly with the meat and spread the layer of meat evenly across the bottom of the flat dish. Put in fridge for two hours. Remove from fridge 20 min before cooking.
Prepare Surprises for Meat Dish:
Put these surprises in a bowl:
Fifteen shitake mushrooms, stems removed & cut to 1/4 or 1/2 depending on size One large onion and one−two long sweet chillies, cut up and par−cooked [dry fry 4 mins] Couple hands full of sugar snap peas, de-stringed & halved A close cut celery stick or two
Whatever else you like similar to these crispy vegetables
Cook Rice & Surprises
Put one tbsp sesame oil & two-three tbsp vegetable oil in wok at highest heat
Add rice and rice surprises including frozen peas. Stay with it, turning constantly for four minutes to finish cooking rice and to par cook crispy vegetables. Remove to 150C oven in a serving dish.
Cook Meat & Meat Surprises:
Cook Meat in a fully heated wok in four batches. No need for oils because the marinade included veg oils. When last batch is done add the meat surprises and add back the rest of the seared meat. Turn constantly until thoroughly mixed & heated through. Remove to a serving dish.
Remove rice from oven....................aaaannnnd......................
Serve!
Sooo delicious it was una festa spettacolare!
I invented this so my dear wife wouldn't have to lift a finger today in the kitchen. She was cleaning a house for sale tomorrow and I can't do that stuff any more (every cloud has a silver lining I suppose)
Cooking Rox
Be well
27/06/06