Stamina

Chinese Pork Sauté 

Funny, the flip-flops I wore in tropical climate Hawaii were no longer fashionable here, Cold air forced my toes to curl, we rushed to the parked car. I zipped up my jacket and slouched over against the car window while my husband drove home deep into the night.

I must be creative for the day-after-a-trip meal. I stood in front of the wide open refrigerator for some time and brainstormed what can I make without going to the store. Gross! I removed a liquidized bag of bean sprouts into the trash. I inspect more for spoilage; yup, this is no good…and neither is that. In fact, most of the vegetables are not looking happy. What a waste!

Goody! I found thin slices of pork belly in the freezer! This dish has become our staple since I found it in Today’s Cooking magazine. It consists of a few ingredients and is very quick. Also the pork‘s vitamin B1 will combat fatigue and give you energy…at least that is what it said. Exhausted from trip, we need that.

Sake may be substituted for shokoushu (紹興酒) however this sweet rice fermented cooking wine is the key for flavoring. It’s cheap and you can use it for many other Chinese dishes so you may want to stock in your pantry? We like this pork sauté on warm cooked rice though, over noodle or in buns such as Momofuku’s are excellent choices too.

Ingredients for Pork Sauté for 4 (or 2 hungry) people

• Thinly sliced pork belly meat about 1 pound, cut in two-inch strips
• 4-5 cloves of garlic, minced
• Fresh ginger roots 1-2 Tablespoons, minced
• Shokoushu (紹興酒) 3-4 Tablespoons
• Brown sugar 4-5 Tablespoons
• Green onion 4-5 Tablespoons chopped small.
• Soy sauce 3-4 Tablespoons 

1. Separate some fatty part of meat from pork belly.
2. Heat non-stick pan and toss the fatty meat in and sauté until the fat is rendered at medium heat.
   
3. Put 1/3 of garlic and all of ginger in the pan and cook until fragrant. Do not burn the garlic
   .
4. Put rest of meat in and cook until meat is half way cooked. Turn the heat up to high and put in sugar and shoukoushu. Coat the meat with sauce while constantly moving it around.
   
5. Add soy sauce and sauté more.
6. Put rest of garlic and turn off heat. Stir for 30secounds or so .
7. Taste meat and adjust seasoning – we like saucy meat so tend to add more sake and soy sauce. Serve over rice and sprinkle with green onion on top. Optional; Make a well in the center of rice and drop an egg yolk in there. If you prefer thicker sauce, add water diluted cornstarch (1 teaspoon of cornstarch and 3 Tablespoons of water) at the end.
   

 

After a long fright plus one hour drive from the airport, my husband and I still felt very lucky to reunited with our beautiful grand children.We were invited to swim at Turtle Bay Resort’s pool facility. Our son-in-law gave his son a fast ride at pool.Peace!Sharks Cove was other fun place to swim and snorkel. We stopped at Matsumoto for shaved ice afterward.Grand children and their equally gorgeous cousins are very close – play well…occasional fights happen though.Today was not life on the beach day, My husband and I took grand children to movie then hurried to un, deux, trois, we observed granddaughter‘s ballet lesson. Too many popcorn ruined our appetite too. We went to the Zoo zoo,zoo with cousins. Hey look over here girl!Nature is a great artist. Love the gum tree.The Little Prince..like tree…Baobab?

We adults had an amazing meal at Morimoto’s. Here are some from the experience. I wish I was better Iphonographer! Abalone chawan mushi was velvety! Fried pineapple with iberiko topping was in the back.Poke with dashi foam. Oh my!Iron Chef Morimoto was in the kitchen. Mahalo for kindly posing for the photo.This is clearly not good pic but my husband couldn’t ask for an another photo. He was very nice though. This is Molten lava cake.Taste and artistic plating we enjoyed throughout meal!  Lovely beach is short walking distance away.

My husband and I stopped at La Palme D’Or cake shop “our usual travel pattern” before heading to airport.Mont blanc and strawberry shortcake. So so good! or should I say ono?

Back home, Portland made Autumn transformation already. 

Brrrr. Body react for 30 degrees colder.