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| Kung Pao Pork |
Recently I have been experimenting with cooking Asian dishes- nice, tasty, authentic dishes. It is so hard to get good Asian food out here so I have to resort to making my own. Every time I go to Perth I overdose on Chinese and Japanese- but it is so worth it...
This dish of Kung Pao pork is inspired by Ming Tsai's recipe from the TV show 'Simply Ming'. He has great recipes which are very easy for the home cook. Kung Pao sauce is traditionally a very hot sauce but you can adjust the chili content- I like it hot! The recipe for the sauce can be used with any meats and here I have used pork belly (mmm piggy), it makes about 2 cups which I keep ready in a jar in the fridge for future meals.
Kung Pao Sauce
- 3 tablespoons fresh crushed garlic
- 2 tablespoon minced ginger
- 2 tablespoons sambal oelek
- 1 cup dark soy sauce
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- 1/2 cup rice vinegar
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch with 1 tablespoon water to thicken if necessary
Method
For the Kung Pao Sauce:
- In a wok or saute pan coated lightly with oil over high heat, add garlic and ginger and saute for 1 minute, just to soften. Add sambal, taking care not to inhale the chili, and saute until well-blended. Add soy sauce to deglaze, then add sugar and rice vinegar. Bring to a boil and slowly whisk in cornflour mixture to thicken. Check for flavor and season if necessary. Keep warm to use in recipes or cool to room temperature, store in an air-tight jar and place in the fridge.
I also have doubled this recipe to keep more in the fridge and I haven't had to add all of the cornflour as it has already been thick enough.
Make sure to always taste as you may need to make some minor adjustments. Use your instincts and be creative!
For the Kung Pao Pork:
Stir-fry chunks of pork belly coated in cornflour on high heat until just cooked, then remove from wok. Add any other veggies and quickly stir fry- I used spring onion, carrot, and capsicum- then return pork to wok with a couple of tablespoons of the sauce and heat through. You can also mix through some unsalted roasted peanuts at the end if you like. Serve with rice!
Tip of the day folks: For a nice rice mould like I have done above, wet small bowl first before adding rice and tipping on to plate. Most impressive for little effort...
