Marvelous Mongolian Pork

If you haven’t picked up on it yet, my idea of Chinese food is hot and sweet. I will walk away from sweet and sour. I don’t get the concept I guess. I found this recipe at Feast Asia, but I must confess I changed it a bit, and added a few things.

I always add veggies to things like General Tso’s or Kung Pao chicken, so I did the same here. And I did alter a couple of things.

For one thing, it seems in most Asian cooking you marinate the meat in some soy sauce concoction to which you add cornstarch. Now I see the value of cornstarch of course, and do use it, but I find that if I add it to the marinade it just gums up the pan terribly and I usually have veggies to stir-fry afterward, so it’s a mess. So I no longer add the cornstarch to the marinade, just use it in the sauce that needs to thicken at the end.

This recipe has its own syrupy sauce and it was just great. In fact we loved the dish and I will be making it very soon again.

INGREDIENTS:

For the Marinade:

1 lb of pork loins, cut up into bite-size pieces
1/4 c soy sauce
3 TBSP hoisin sauce
1 tsp sesame seed oil, (hot if you have it)

For the Sauce:

2 tbsp canola oil
1 tbsp ginger, minced or grated
1 tsp garlic, minced or grated
1/2 c dark soy sauce
1/4 c rice wine (I regular white wine)
1 Serrano chili pepper, minced (use whatever heat chili you desire)
1 c sugar

For the Stir-fry:

4-6 cups of any variety of veggies you like, boy choy, carrots, sprouts, sliced onions, broccoli, celery, cabbage, etc.

INSTRUCTIONS:

Make the marinade and place the pork in it, mix and refrigerate for a good 30 minutes before cooking.
Saute the ginger and garlic in the oil until fragrant, then add the rest of the sauce ingredients and simmer and reduce until it has reached a syrupy consistency. Set aside.
Stir-fry the pork in some oil until done. Remove to a serving bowl.
Saute the veggies until tender crisp. Remove to the serving bowl.
Pour the sauce over the meat and veggies.
Serve over rice.

Serves: 4

Notes: This is wonderful served with some Crab Rangoon and an egg roll. Those recipes will be coming along in a couple of weeks.