Chinese-style pork in the microwave (Meat)

Member Name: calypte

Product:	Meat
Date:	23/08/01 (194 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: quick and easy, tastes scrummy

Disadvantages: uses sherry

I’ve found over the years three recurring themes in my favourite recipes: chilli, soy sauce, and alcohol. Actually, I’m sure somewhere I must have one with all three! This is an example of the last (and possibly best!) category – alcohol.

Sherry isn’t exactly a ‘trendy’ drink, I know, but it works really well in cooking. I’d go so far as to recommend buying a bottle just for cooking with – mind you, I do have a couple of different recipes that use it, but it lasts practically forever in the back of the cupboard. Or maybe you could pinch some from your granny!

Sherry is a wine-related alcohol, like port, and I’ve seen lots of recipes that say you can use white wine instead of sherry. I’m not sure if that’d work for this recipe, but if you don’t fancy buying a bottle of sherry you might want to give it a try – let me know how it turns out! However, there’s a lovely richness to dishes that use sherry, so I do recommend it, even if you’re not too keen on drinking the stuff – I’m not, really, but nor do I loathe it. See the notes on variations at the end, too.

The absolutely best bit about this recipe is that it cooks in the microwave in about 15 minutes. I’m all for the kind of meal you can leave marinating overnight then cook quickly when you get home from work / uni / wherever.


*Ingredients (to serve 4):
1-2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons soy sauce (preferably rich, as this is less salty)
3 tablespoons dry sherry
2½ teaspoons cornflour
1¼ teaspoons sugar (NOT icing sugar, but better to use a finer grain – i.e. caster, not granulated)
½ teaspoon finely chopped fresh ginger OR ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
1 garlic clove, skinned and crushed
450g (1lb) pork fillet, cut into thin strips
2 large carrots, peeled and julienned (cut into thin strips)
1 green pepper, deseeded and
cut into thin strips
3 spring onions, cut into 2.5cm (1-inch) chunks
rice, to serve

*Ingredients notes:
Soy sauce – try to use a rich or dark soy sauce, as this is less salty than light varieties.

Sugar – if you have it, caster sugar is a finer grain and therefore mixes a little more easily. Granulated (the stuff you put in your tea) is okay but DO NOT use icing sugar!!

Pork fillet – not the cheapest of cuts, but works well; it’s entirely up to you what you use.

*Method:
(1) Put the oil, soy sauce, sherry, cornflour, sugar, ginger and garlic together in a large bowl. Stir to remove any lumps – although obviously the garlic and fresh ginger will stay as lumps, so don’t spend ages (as I once did, not really concentrating!) trying to stir them out!!

(2) Add the pork, mix well to coat in the sauce and leave to marinate for at least 30 minutes.

(3) Start cooking rice first (according to packet instructions), as this takes longer than the main dish.

(4) Cook the pork and marinade mix on high power in a microwave for about 5 minutes.

(5) Stir in the vegetables and continue to cook for a further 7-10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the pork is tender and the juices run clear, and the vegetables are tender but still firm.

(6) Serve with cooked rice.


*Variations:
Cooking: If you don’t have a microwave, or prefer not to use it for this, cook the pork in a wok or frying pan as you would a stir fry. This shouldn’t take any longer than 15-20 minutes.

Vegetables: Try adding other vegetables. I’d suggest mushrooms (which I loathe, personally) or beansprouts, but I’m sure plenty of other things would work – chopped leek, perhaps, especially if you want to bulk it out a bit more.

Marinade: This is one area I haven’t try changing in this recipe, mostly because I like it the way
it is. However, I understand that the use of sherry will put off some people. As I said at the beginning, you might be able to use white wine instead, but it’s not something I’ve tried to please don’t blame me if it’s awful! Another recipe I like which isn’t too dissimilar to this uses orange juice as well as some sherry, so that’s another possibility. Try to keep the overall quantity of liquid the same whatever variations you try.


So, there you go. Very tasty, in my opinion, so I hope it’s useful to someone else!

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