Abercrombie & Feast

Well, every now and then, I get to cook.  I say this because usually my lovely wife rules the kitchen, and I have to play by her rules (such as gaining permission to use the kitchen).  However, once a month she either doesn’t feel like cooking (upon which she instructs me to cook), or I request a night of ownership of the kitchen.

Tonight was one of MY nights.  I picked out a meal, looked at some recipes, and picked up the food from the market.  That being said, I did forget the rice.  Luckily, my wife was happy enough to pick up this last piece for me so that we didn’t have just a naked stir fry in a bowl.

I call this recipe: Cracked Pepper Pork

It is rather straight-forward and easy.  It is a collection of chopped veggies with sauce that you cook over medium-high heat.  Nothing fancy, and you can pick several of your favourite veggies as well.  I was even instructed by a relative (her side of the family) that leftover veggies work well for making a stir fry.  I am not necessarily recommending this (Sorry Nance).

The recipe worked well, but I would recommend adding more chili if you like it spicy.  It lacked a bit of heat for us.

Cracked Pepper Pork

This recipe serves 4 and takes about 15 minutes to cook.  Leave a bit of time for prep work – chopping vegetables, making veggie stock, slicing meat.

• 400-500g-piece pork, thinly sliced
• 3 tbs vegetable oil
• 1 tbs soy sauce
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp cracked black pepper
• 1 medium brown onion, diced
• 2 large garlic cloves, crushed or finely diced
• 1 bunch broccolini, cut into 4cm lengths
• 160ml (2/3 cup) vegetable stock
• 1 red chili, chopped
• 1 handful of snow peas
• 4-5 shallots, chopped  (spring onions)
• 1 medium red capsicum, sliced  (bell pepper)
• Steamed rice (for the final product)

Cooking steps

1. Preparing the meat – Combine the pork, soy sauce, sesame oil and pepper in a large bowl and mix well.
2. Open a refreshing cold beverage (Carlsberg in this example).
3. Heat 1 tbs of the vegetable oil in a wok over high heat until just smoking. Add half the pork mixture and stir-fry for 1-2 minutes or until brown.  Transfer to a heatproof bowl. Repeat with 1 tbs of the remaining oil and the remaining pork mixture, reheating the wok between batches.
4. Heat 1 tbs of oil in the wok over medium-high heat until just smoking. Add the onion and stir-fry for 2 minutes or until soft. Add the garlic and half the shallots (spring onions) and stir-fry for 1 minute or until aromatic. Add broccolini, capsicum, red chili, and vegetable stock.
5. At this point, add soy sauce, sesame oil, and cracked black pepper to the veggie mixture to taste.  Stir-fry for 3 minutes or until broccolini is bright green and tender crisp. Add the snow peas in the final 30 seconds.
6. Return the pork to the wok and stir-fry with the mixture for 1 minute or until mixture boils and thickens.  Taste and add soy/sesame oil/black pepper as necessary.
7. Serve with steamed rice and add remaining shallots/red chili to the top as garnish.