SRC 2018 Reunion – Sweet Chili Pork

I feel so immensely happy as I type this post and I owe it all to our SRC Reunion event. Those of you who’ve been around here for a while, will know that I was part of this super fun group called the Secret Recipe Club. This was a lot of fun, sort of like Secret Santa for food bloggers. You were assigned a partner and you had to pick and cook a recipe from their blog and all the members would post about it on a pre-determined day called Reveal Day. I was part of the SRC right from June 2011 to November 2016, a little over 5 years. So when we wrapped that up, I knew I would missed this bunch of bloggers.

Early last month, Sarah of Fantastical Sharing of Recipes, who happens to be our SRC boss lady 😉  called out to all the club members and announced an SRC reunion event. Of course, I signed up for it and for this event, I was assigned Micha’s blog, Cooking Mimi. Micha’s blog is packed with great recipes. I had an absolute blast going through her blog and picking a recipe for today. After a lot of looking around I narrowed my choices down to this Hawaiian Pork, Potstickers (she even makes her own potsticker wrappers), Quick and Crispy Pork Cutlets and her Sweet Chili Pork. Have you spotted the trend here? I somehow happened to be zeroing in on Pork recipes. So this much was clear, I knew I was making Pork. When I saw her recipe for Sweet Chili Pork my mind was made up. This is what I was going to make.

Before we move on to the recipe, let’s talk about this Sweet Chili Pork, shall we? This dish has it all with juicy little pieces of pork tossed in a sweet sauce with mild heat from the Sweet Chili sauce and the crunch of the onion and capsicum just rounds it off beautifully. I could not believe how easy this recipe was. I wanted to try it just to see if a recipe this minimal would hit the spot. And hit the spot it did. I am so glad I tried this out. My husband is not a fussy eater but he is my biggest critic and helps me work on recipes and tweak them. He was floored by this recipe. And I agree with him 100%. This recipe is very similar to the kind of takeaway meals we got back in Bombay, albeit not with pork, but with chicken. Thank you Micha, for an absolute stunner.

I only made a couple of minor additions to the original recipe. I added some finely chopped ginger and garlic and some pieces of capsicum (green peppers) to the recipe. We served this up with some fried rice, but this would work very well with some noodles too.

 



Don’t forget to see what the others have whipped up for our 2018 reunion –

SRC 2018 Reunion – Sweet Chili Pork

Recipe by Trisha VazCourse: MainsCuisine: American – ChineseDifficulty: Medium
Servings

4

servings
Prep time

10

minutes
Cooking time

20

minutes

Juicy little pieces of pork tossed in a sweet sauce with mild heat from the Sweet Chili sauce and the crunch of the onion and capsicum.

Ingredients

  • 1/4 kg boneless pork

  • 1 egg

  • 1/3 cup flour

  • 1/4 cup cornstarch

  • 1/2 cup + 1 tbsp vegetable oil

  • 1 large onion, cut into cubes

  • 1 /2 green capsicum, cut into cubes (similar in size to the onion cubes)

  • 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

  • 1/2″ ginger, finely chopped

  • 1/2 cup sweet chilli sauce

  • Salt, to taste

  • 1 tbsp lime juice

Directions

  • Heat 1/2 cup of oil in a skillet over moderate heat.
  • Crack the egg into a small bowl, whisk it and set it aside.
  • In another bowl, mix the flour and cornstarch.
  • Cut the pork into bite sized pieces.
  • Toss the pieces in a little salt and lime juice. Toss the pork pieces in the flour mix. Then dip them in the egg and in the flour mix again .
  • Fry the pieces of pork in batches for about 3-4 minutes a side or until golden brown and crispy. Drain and set aside.
  • Heat 1 tbsp of oil in another pan.
  • When the oil is hot, add the onion and capsicum and stir fry till the pieces have just started to soften. I like mine a little crunchy. Cook it to your desired level of doneness.
  • Add the finely chopped ginger and garlic and stir it around.
  • Add the sweet chilly sauce and the fried pork pieces. Stir to coat everything in the sweet chili sauce. At this point, if you want a little more sauce in the dish, add some more. Toss well.

    Serve hot.

    Enjoy!!!
     

Cashew Chicken on lettuce

Howdy folks!

I hope you’re having a great week. I am super excited today. Yes, partly because it is Friday and that is one of favorite days of the week. It is also because, today in a first of many (hopefully), I’ve made a video for this recipe. I have wanted to do this for the longest time, but I’ve been putting it off because I thought I needed to have the perfect kitchen, the perfect cookware and so on. But I have come to realize that not everyone has the perfect kitchen, but we still love to cook up great food and learn new recipes. So instead of waiting for the perfect kitchen stars to align, I was going to start sharing my videos with you to show you that you can cook great food no matter how small or dated your kitchen may be. Since we’re renting at the moment, there’s not much we can do about the situation at the moment, but the focus will always be on delicious food.

In the last few years I’ve cooked on gas stoves, hot plates and ceramic cooktops. All of them have their own set of quirks. Like they say every oven is different, I think every cooktop is different too and you just need to spend some time getting to know it.

On to today’s recipe. This cashew chicken is a quick and easy recipe. You can get it on the table in under 20 minutes. This is the perfect low carb meal when served on a bed of lettuce. You could, however, also serve it up with some fried rice or noodles too. I love it with lettuce and it makes a perfect summer’s meal.

Here’s the video. Let me know what you think. I sure hope you will like and share the video and Subscribe to my channel too. This is my first cooking video, so it’s not perfect and I’ve learnt a lot from this experience. The detailed recipe will also be listed below.

Cashew Chicken on Lettuce
Serves 3

250g boneless, skinless chicken
2 tbsp low sodium soy sauce (Use a little lesser if you’re using regular soy sauce)
2 tbsp oyster sauce
1/2 – 1 tsp red chilly paste
1/2 tbsp olive oil (cooking oil of your choice)
1/2 tbsp sesame oil
1 large clove garlic, finely chopped
1/2 tsp ginger, finely chopped (fresh ginger is best but you can also use lightly dried ginger like I did here)
1/2 cup raw cashew seeds
Iceberg lettuce leaves (or any lettuce of your choice)
Sesame seeds, to garnish

Cut the chicken to bite size pieces.

In a bowl, mix the chicken, soy sauce, oyster sauce and chilly paste and toss well. Set this aside for about 10 minutes to marinade.

While that is happening, chop the ginger and garlic. (Fresh ginger is best, but I didn’t have any so I used some from Gourmet Garden.)

Chop the lettuce leaves into bite size pieces and place them on serving plates.

Now, heat the olive oil in a pan over medium heat. Add the ginger and garlic and saute for about 30 seconds or till they release a lovely aroma and are gently sizzling.

Turn the heat up to medium high and add the chicken and the marinade liquids. Add the sesame oil to the pan.

Stir fry for about 4-5 minutes or till the chicken has cooked through. (Please note, the cook time will depend on the size of the chicken pieces, so watch the pan and make sure the chicken pieces are cooked on all sides and have cooked through.) Stir the contents of the pan frequently, so ensure they don’t burn.

When the chicken is cooked, add the cashew seeds and stir through for about a minute or till they’ve heated through.

And that’s it. Your cashew chicken is ready to serve.

Spoon some of the chicken on the bed of lettuce. Make sure you have a few cashew seeds on each plate.

Sprinkle some sesame seeds on top and serve.

Enjoy!!!

NOTE: This is NOT a sponsored post.

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