Vietnamese Caramel Pork Stir Fry

After the lack of meat from last week's meals, I decided we needed some meat. We got this 30-Minute Vietnamese Caramel Pork Stir Fry recipe from How Sweet It is.

Ingredients:
From the Pantry (or market)

• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 2 tbsp toasted sesame oil
• 6 garlic cloves
• 1 bouillon Chicken stock
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1.5 tbsp soy sauce
• 3 tsp cornstarch
• 3 tsp rice vinegar
• 1 tsp red pepper flakes
• 3 cups cooked brown rice (1 cup uncooked Uncle Ben's 20 Minute brown rice)

From the market

• 1.5 lb pork tenderloin, cut into cubes
• 1.5 large sweet onion, dicded
• 3 tsp grated ginger
• 1 red pepper, thinly sliced
• 1 head cabbage, sliced
• 1/4 cup roasted peanuts, chopped
• 1/2 cup freshly torn cilantro
• 2 limes

Directions:

1. Prep your ingredients. Season pork with salt & pepper.
2. Heat oil in large wok over high heat.
3. Add pork once the oil is hot. Cook until seared and golden brown on all sides, about 6 to 8 minutes.
4. Remove pork from wok and set aside.
5. Add onion, ginger, and garlic to the wok, stirring to toss. Cook until slightly softened, about 5 minutes.
6. In a bowl, whisk together chicken stock, sugar, soy sauce, cornstarch, vinegar, and pepper flakes.
7. Pour mixture into wok and bring to a boil.
8. Reduce to a simmer and cook for 3 to 4 minutes.
9. Add pork and red pepper into the wok, tossing to coat and cook for another 2 minutes.
10. Add rice, cilantro, peanuts, and lime juice.
11. Serve over cabbage.

This was a pretty tasty recipe and pretty simple to make. If you prep all your ingredients in this order (onion, ginger, garlic, red pepper, cabbage, cilantro, pork) and set each one aside, you will only need to wash three bowls, one cutting board, one knife, and one wok. We will probably make it again because it didn't take too long to make.

Asian Pork Stir Fry

Tonight's dinner was inspired by the 20 minute recipe from Better Homes and Garden (http://www.bhg.com/recipe/pork/jamaican-pork-stir-fry/). The original recipe called for Jamaican all spice, but I don't like the taste so I substituted it with my own spice.

Ingredients:

- 2 tbsp oil

- 16 oz frozen vegetables

- 1 tsp garlic powder

- 1 tsp onion powder

- 1 tsp ginger powder

- 12 oz stir fry pork

- 1/3 cup hoi sin sauce

- half pack rice noodle

Steps:

1) Start boiling enough water to cover rice noodles. Once it boils, add the rice noodles and cook approximately 2 minutes.

2) Heat the oil in a wok on medium high. Once heated, add the vegetables.

2) The vegetables will need to cook about 5 minutes until crisp-tender. While it is cooking, toss the pork in ginger, garlic, and onion powder.

3) Once the vegetables are cooked, remove and place aside. Cook the pork for 2-3 minutes or until the pink is gone.

4) Once the pork is cooked, add the hoisin sauce. Toss and make sure everything is coated.

5) Mix in te vegetables. Turn off heat and add mix in the rice noodles (Note: I cut the noodles with scissors before adding it so it would be easier to serve).

6) Once everything is mixed well, serve.

7) Srirachi is optional.

Benjarong

Went to Benjarong today.

Although it's sad that Transylvania had to close, we really enjoyed what we had today:

The Drunken Stir Fry Chicken;

The server was kind enough to ask if we wanted mild, medium, or spicy. I can take only a little bit of spice, and the medium was perfect. Spicy enough to heat your lips and tongue, but not so spicy you can't eat it.

And the Roasted Duck Red Curry.

The curry came with some rice, but it wasn't enough for the amount of sauce in the curry. We ended up ordering another one. It was supposed to be medium spiced, but it wasn't spicy at all. The curry was sweet, I could have drunk it as soup.

At the end, we didn't have to order dessert as they gave us complimentary taro and tapioca with coconut milk. Delicious! It was salty and sweet at the same time so that it wasn't overwhelming at all.

Overall, well worth a visit!

Portobello and Glass Noodle Stir Fry

Tonight's recipe was also from Kidspot. Again, we changed the recipe just a little bit to suit what our grocery  market offers.

Ingredients:

• a package of glass noodles (we just used a package as close to 200 g as possible)
• 2 tsp peanut oil
• 2 tsp ginger, finely grated
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 white onion
• 1 bell pepper, thinly sliced
• 1 large carrot, peeled and cut into batons
• ~150 g shiitake mushrooms, sliced
• 2 portobello mushrooms, sliced
• 4 bunches of bok choy
• 4 tbsp soy sauce
• juice of 1 lemon
• 1 tsp sugar

Steps:

1. While the water is boiling, combine the soy sauce, lemon juice and sugar in a bowl and stir until the sugar dissolves.

2. Prepare the vegetables.

3. When the water boils, add the noodles, stir a big until they are all submerged. Let the noodles soften, then drain and toss in half of the peanut oil so it doesn't stick. Set aside.

4. Heat the remainder of the oil in a pan on medium high heat. Add the ginger, garlic, and onion and cook for about 2 minutes. Add the vegetables and cook for another 3 minutes or until the bok choy starts getting soft and the mushrooms starts juicing.

5. While the vegetable is cooking, you can cut the noodles so it's not as difficult to eat. Then add it to the pan.

6. Stir the ingredients around until they are well mixed.

7. Plate and enjoy.

8. It has enough sauce on its own, but a little sriracha sauce doesn't hurt.

By the way, here is a follow up article to the complaint about the sriracha odour. Little victories.

Tofu Stir Fry

We had a bottle of General Tao stir fry sauce sitting in the fridge so we decided to put it to use tonight. These stir fry sauces from Superstore are great for a quick meal.

It's the first Tuesday of the month and Safeway has a 10% discount so we saved all our grocery shopping for tonight. Since we had to do the grocery shopping tonight, we had to make a quick dish - stir fry.

Ingredients:

• 1 pkg fried tofu
• 1 small head of broccoli
• 1 leek
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 inch ginger
• 1 clove shallot
• 1 carrot
• handful of mushrooms (about 4 large)
• half a bunch of cilantro
• 1 bell pepper

Steps:

1. If you want to serve it on rice, start the rice now.

2. Chop all your ingredients up and drain the tofu.

3. Cook the onion family first (garlic, shallot, and ginger). Then add the vegetables that take longer to cook (broccoli and carrot). Last, add the vegetables that don't require too much time to cook (cilantro, mushrooms, and bell pepper). Mix in the tofu and sauce.

4. Serve on rice and you're done!

5. Of course for me, no dish is complete without a bit of chili sauce.