Stir-fried Shredded Pork with Green Chiles and Cilantro

JS:
We had a stir-fried pork dish with peppers at a couple of restaurants around town. I like the flavours in the dish so much that I thought I'd replicate the dish at home. It's really a very simple, home-style dish.

The hardest part of the whole thing is deseeding the jalapeño peppers. Now, of course, one can just leave and cook with the seeds, but I'm afraid that would make it inedibly spicy for some of our family members.

TS:
(Pssst! I was surprised JS actually had the patience to deseed so many jalapeños. The labor-intensiveness of it all!)



JS:
I used pork tenderloin for this dish, and having tried it with pork shoulder, I must say I prefer the tenderloin. While the fattiness of the pork shoulder was welcome, the pork shoulder also added too much sweetness that threw off the flavour balance in the dish for me.



JS:
I marinate the pork tenderloin strips in a bit of Shaoxing wine and soy sauce. I didn't bother with the cornstarch as I'm a bit partial to the juices not being glazy or thick.

Once all the ingredients are prepped, it's a matter of stir-frying like crazy.

Of course, look at the size of our wok and the amount of ingredients that we have there, and it's a guarantee that I'm not going to get any sort of wok-hei. I can live with no wok-hei, though -- it's good enough although I admit the smokiness would add another dimension to the dish.




Cook aromatics, then pork strips. Add the jalapeño, salt, Shaoxing wine, Chinkiang vinegar, a dash of white pepper, and finally, the cilantro.

JS:
Throw in a generous amount of cilantro (stems are okay), towards the end, just to wilt it a bit, and it's quite a satisfying dish.

There's some heat from the jalapeños, but the heat is pushed to the background, letting that unique slightly bitter, slightly sweet, all vegetal-fruitiness, of the peppers shine.



eatingclub Chinese

Recipe
Stir-Fried Shredded Pork with Green Chiles and Cilantro

1 lb pork tenderloin, cut into thin strips
1 tbsp Shaoxing wine, for marinating pork
1 tbsp soy sauce, for marinating pork

1/2 lb jalapeño peppers, deseeded and cut into strips
1/2 inch ginger, cut into slivers
1 clove garlic, minced

1 tbsp Shaoxing wine, for stir-frying
salt to season
dash of white pepper
1 tsp Chinkiang vinegar

a handful or two of cilantro

Marinate pork with Shaoxing and soy sauce while you prep the other ingredients.

Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a wok. Add ginger and garlic until fragrant. Add pork strips. When pork strips are halfway cooked through, add jalapeño pepper strips. Add Shaoxing wine. Season with salt and pepper and add Chinkiang vinegar towards the end. Toss in cilantro.

Serve with plain white rice.

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Minatamis na Saba (Philippine Boiled Saba Banana)

TS:
Some of you may remember the tragic failure of our previous boiled saba banana attempt.

What? Boiled saba banana? "What is that?", you ask.

Saba is a type of banana or plantain in the Philippines that is commonly eaten as a snack or dessert. Sometimes it's fried with sugar, or wrapped up in a wrapper and fried (see Turon (Philippine Banana Spring Roll)), or, simply boiled.

Boiling is something that tugs at our lazy heartstrings, so that's the way to go for us.

Market Manila: Saba or Cooking Bananas
Wikipedia: Banana-cue, Turon and Arroz a la Cubana



TS:
Ah yes, the tragic failure.

The previous time we attempted this, we bought burro bananas from the store, thinking that they could be saba. But, I think perhaps not.


FAIL! weird boiled burro bananas

TS:
As you can see, they turned a funky red color! That was too weird. Also, the banana itself wasn't sweet at all! Very disappointing.


real saba

TS:
This time, success was sure as someone had brought these saba all the way from the Philippines. What's more, someone else much more knowledgeable was also responsible for boiling them.



TS:
Oh! You keep them in their skins while boiling! That's useful to know. They were simmered over low heat for several hours. I'm thinking that one can't really overcook them.

Afterwards, they turn brown like so.



TS:
One can serve them in a light syrup (brown sugar melted in water). In fact, that is what Minatamis na Saba is.

But, making syrup means doing some work. So, I simply popped open a can of condensed milk. I love condensed milk anyway.



TS:
Although, even to my condensed milk-loving self, the boiled saba were very good eaten as is without adornment.

I guess this is actually just plain ol' nilagang saba (boiled saba), not minatamis.



TS:
Now, all we need is another good Samaritan from the Philippines to bring us more saba!

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eatingclub banana
Boiled Saba (Burro Banana) with Condensed Milk
Caribbean "Fish n' (Banana) Chips"
Turon (Philippine Banana Spring Roll)
Minatamis na Saba (Philippine Boiled Saba Banana)

Cuttlefish Ink Pasta with Crab and Bell Peppers

TS:
It's time for another "we-have-to-use-these-things-up" dish.



TS:
We've had this cuttlefish ink pasta in the pantry for quite a while now. Actually, these were from the old house! We had bought these way, way back and used them for a party. We decided to "save" some for ourselves and never did find the right time to cook them.



TS:
The time is now!



TS:
In one hand, we had some cuttlefish ink pasta, and in another, some crabmeat (which I believe was bought to make our Supreme Lion's Head Meatballs with Crabmeat).

As is always the case, something simple and not fussy was the rule of the day.



TS:
While the water was boiling and the pasta was cooking, I proceeded to make the "sauce".



TS:
I chopped some garlic and chile peppers, diced some tomatoes and bell peppers, zested a lemon and chopped some parsley.



TS:
I started by sautéing the garlic and chile peppers in olive oil, then added the bell peppers. After a bit of cooking, the tomatoes went in, followed by the crabmeat.



TS:
The cooked cuttlefish ink pasta went in next, then some butter and the lemon zest. A squeeze of lemon juice, some parsley, and the dish was done.

Quick, light, and satisfying. Perfect for lazy summer days.

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Recipe
Cuttlefish Ink Pasta with Crab and Bell Peppers


cuttlefish ink or squid ink pasta

cooked crabmeat

garlic, chopped
chile peppers, chopped
tomato, seeded and diced
bell peppers, seeded and diced

butter
lemon, zested and juiced
parsley, chopped

Adjust quantities to suit your needs and taste.

Bring water to a boil, making sure to add a generous amount of salt. Cook pasta according to package directions until al dente (not overcooked). Drain. Reserve some of the cooking water.

In a sauté pan, heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Add garlic and chile peppers and cook for a few seconds until fragrant. Add bell peppers and cook until softened slightly.

Add tomatoes. Do not cook tomatoes for too long to retain their fresh quality.

Add the crabmeat, then the cooked pasta. Add butter and toss well.

If pasta is too dry, add olive oil, or more butter, or some pasta water. Add lemon zest and some lemon juice. Toss well. Adjust seasoning of needed.

Add parsley last and serve.

Hong Kong-style Curry Beef Brisket (咖喱牛腩), 1st Attempt

TS:
HK-style Curry Beef Brisket is one of the dishes that we get "on the outside".

But, we were feeling a tad ambitious one day and decided to take on this project. Having made a Hong Kong-style curry with baby cuttlefish before, we thought we could successfully recreate the beef brisket version.

I believe we did the first thing right: we braised the beef brisket in a standard soy sauce, cinnamon, star anise, ginger mixture -- the usual Chinese suspects -- first.



TS:
There it is the next day. We proceeded to slice them into big chunks, then prepped the onions and bell peppers. We also chopped some garlic and made our curry powder and sesame oil paste, as per the recipe we used for our cuttlefish version.



TS:
We proceeded to cook the aromatics and the vegetables, then added the curry-sesame paste, as well as some of the braising liquid, some water, some evaporated milk, some turmeric, salt and sugar...



TS:
...but it doesn't really matter because our dish wasn't very HK Curry-ish at all!

It wasn't bad, but it really wasn't what I consider HK Curry. I'm thinking that perhaps I overdid the curry? Look at its odd color. I really don't know for sure, though. What is that magical mélange of curry and stuff that Cantonese cooks use?

The best I could do was to plate our dish the way we see them in HK-style cafés: the curry in a dish like so, and a mound of rice.



TS:
So, at least for now, we'll continue getting our HK curry on the outside, as there are numerous acceptable and more-than-acceptable places to get them. In fact, the version I like is available not more than 5 minutes away from home.


eatingclub Hong Kong/Cantonese
Chicken Chow Mein
Cantonese Braised Beef Brisket, Two Ways
Lobster Congee from a Lobster Feast
Chinese Roast Pork Belly
Gailan (Chinese Broccoli) with Oyster Sauce, Two Ways
Chinese Pork Bone Soup with Carrots and Water Chestnuts
Hong Kong-style Curry Cuttlefish
Dimsum Seafood Trio: Black Pearl Prawn Toast, Scallop in Nest, Jewelled Rice Cup
Hong Kong-style Singapore Noodles (星洲炒米)
Hong Kong-style Stir-fried Water Spinach with Shrimp Paste (蝦醬通菜)
Hong Kong-style Stir-fried Rice Noodle with Beef (乾炒牛河)
Sweet and Sour Pork
Hong Kong-style Curry Beef Brisket (咖喱牛腩), 1st Attempt

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