Pork, Bok Choy and Chilli with Sichuan Pepper and New Blog of the Month

You may be relieved to know that this Sunday's dish is not Japanese – but it is Chinese inspired.

Ingredients:

Pork mince

Bok Choy

1 tsp sugar

1 ½ tblsp soy sauce

2 tsp sesame oil

2 tsp Chinese cooking wine

1 tsp Chinese black vinegar

Fresh ginger – grated

Oil for frying

1 tsp cornflour (cornstarch)

2 tsp Chinese chilli paste

½ tsp Sichuan peppercorns, freshly ground

Method:

Mix together the pork, sugar, half the soy sauce, sesame oil, rice wine and black vinegar as well as half the ginger and leave steeping in the fridge for at least 2 hours.

Heat up your pan/wok and put the vegetable oil in.  Fry the pork (in batches if you've got a lot) until it is well browned and beginning to crisp up.

Add the rest of the soy sauce, sesame oil, rice wine and vinegar along with the cornflour (mixed with a little cold water) and bok choy. 

Cook until the bok choy leaves have wilted but the stalks are still a bit crunchy.

Take off the heat, add the remining ginger and the chilli paste and Sichuan pepper – if you are not used to these spices add just a little bit to start with.  You can always add more.  Taste and then add a drop more soy sauce and sesame oil if you think it needs it.

Serve straight away

Now onto October's Blog of the Month.  Kath runs this month's Blog of the Month – In The Kitchen With Kath.  This is a very interesting food blog with a wide range of recipes. Kath is much better than I am at taking pics of the different stages of creating her dishes.  Recipes I have enjoyed include: Roasted Shrimp Cocktail, Turmeric Roasted Cauliflower and Simple Salmon Chirashi

Sichuan Chicken - my way - again!

So I got home and all I had were 3 chicken thighs in the freezer, an onion, 3 cloves of garlic, half a bell pepper, half a carrot, a tomato and some beans.  This is what I did:

First I sliced the vegetables and garlic – all pretty finely – the carrot in little julienne strips, same with the beans.  I like to do all the vegetables first before cutting up the meat to avoid any cross contamination.

Then I cut up the chicken into half inch or so cubes.  I put it in a bowl with a generous splosh of both soy sauce and fish sauce together with about a dessert spoonful of a hot chilli jam I had in the fridge (you could substitute any other sort of chilli sauce or even a few chilli flakes).  Then I added 2 teaspoons of Sichuan pepper and 2 teaspoons of white peppercorns ( I pounded it all up in my small mortar and pestle I use for spices).   It sat there only for about 15 minutes before cooking – but you could leave it for a couple of hours in the fridge if you wanted the flavours to meld more.  If you don’t like things too peppery – maybe this isn’t the recipe for you!  Or you could halve the quantity of pepper.

So to the cooking.  Vegetable oil in the pan – then a quick fry of the garlic slices, add the meat, once it has coloured a bit, add some golden syrup or brown sugar (say 1-2 tablespoons).  Then add the other vegetables in order from hardest to softest – ie carrot and onion first followed by the beans and bell pepper  - with the tomato going in only at the last minute.  Right at the end I added about a spoonful of limoncello – but a bit of lemon juice or lemon zest would work just as well.

While this is all cooking – and it only takes about 15 minutes all up – cook some noodles or rice.  I did noodles this time.

Serve by putting the roughly drained noodles into a large bowl, add the chicken mixture, sprinkle a bit of chopped parsley (or any other fresh green herb) on top along with some crispy onion (you can buy this from Asian stores – an optional extra would be fine without it).  The photo of this dish was taken before I put the crispy onions on because I almost forgot them.  It turned out really delicious which is why I thought I would share it with you.

Salt & Pepper Pork

Do you want something quick, tasty and easy?  This Salt and Pepper Pork may be just the thing for you.  I got the idea from Nigel Slater's Eat.

There are only 3 ingredients other than the cubed pork and the oil you fry it in.  Salt, black peppercorns and Szechuan peppercorns .

Crush your peppercorns (black and Szechuan) in a mortar and pestle as finely as you can.  Toss into a plastic bag along with the cubed pork and let it sit for about half an hour.

Heat your pan until very hot, put in our oil then add your pork together with a tablespoon of salt – fry quickly for about 5 minutes and then serve.  That's it!

Schezuan Plum Pork using Brined Pork

 

I read in Michael Ruhlman's book that brining meat is a good thing to do.  I do have trouble getting lean cuts of pork tender so I decided to give it a go.  

 

 

To brine the pork, I salted it with sea salt and then put it into a container and just covered it with water.  I also added some white peppercorns, yellow mustard seeds, a bay leaf and some Thai fish sauce.  I didn't have time to brine it for very long – just under 3 hours.

I then cut the pork up into pieces and made this Schezuan Plum Pork in much the same way I would make any Schezuan (or is it Sichuan?) dish.

First I fried off a little red curry paste in coconut milk and then added freshly ground Sichuan pepper and coriander seeds.  At this stage I also put in ½ tsp of tamarind paste (for the sour element), some grated ginger and some fish sauce.  

Then in went the pork followed by some maple syrup and ¼ cup of plum sauce (the sweet elements)

My apologies for the lack of food styling.  My better half kindly put the pork into the serving dish and did not faff about trying to make it look pretty. 

The verdict on the brining – well the pork was ok but not sensationally tender – I'll give it another go with a longer brining time and maybe a bit more salt.

My take on Sichuan Chicken

Sichuan chicken

So I got back from a trip and all I had were 3 chicken thighs in the freezer, an onion, 3 cloves of garlic, half a bell pepper, half a carrot, a tomato and some beans.  This is what I did:

First I sliced the vegetables and garlic – all pretty finely – the carrot in little julienne strips, same with the beans.  I like to do all the vegetables first before cutting up the meat to avoid any cross contamination.

Julienned carrots

Then I cut up the chicken into half inch or so cubes.  I put it in a bowl with a generous splosh of both soy sauce and fish sauce together with about a dessert spoonful of a hot chilli jam I had in the fridge (you could substitute any other sort of chilli sauce or even a few chilli flakes).  Then I added 2 teaspoons of Sichuan pepper and 2 teaspoons of white peppercorns ( I pounded it all up in my small mortar and pestle I use for spices) It sat there only for about 15 minutes before cooking – but you could leave it for a couple of hours in the fridge if you wanted the flavours to meld more.  If you don’t like things too peppery – maybe this isn’t the recipe for you!  Or you could halve the quantity of pepper.

So to the cooking.  Vegetable oil in the pan – then a quick fry of the garlic slices, add the meat, once it has coloured a bit, add some golden syrup or brown sugar (say 1-2 tablespoons).  Then add the other vegetable in order from hardest to softest – ie carrot and onion first followed by the beans and bell pepper  - with the tomato going in only at the last minute.  Right at the end I added about a spoonful of limoncello (a lemon liqueur which I bought at duty free) – but a bit of lemon juice or lemon zest would work just as well.

Limoncello

While this is all cooking – and it only takes about 15 minutes all up – cook some noodles or rice.  I did noodles this time.

Serve by putting the roughly drained noodles into a large bowl, add the chicken mixture, sprinkle a bit of chopped parsley (or any other fresh green herb) on top along with some crispy onion (you can buy this from Asian stores – an optional extra would be fine without it).  The photo of this dish was taken before I put the crispy onions on because I almost forgot them.  It turned out really delicious which is why I thought I would share it with you.


You might also be interested in this post on making jam (or jelly).  If so, click here

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