Sunday, March 25, 2012

Caribbean Inspired Pork (or chicken, or fish...)


Doesn't that look good? I almost worry about ruining this post with too many words. Lately, my man's inspiration is fruit. In this case, kiwi were on sale at Byerly's. Two for one. 

This dish is made with boneless pork chops. But the pork isn't the important thing, it's the slaw and the sauce that makes this amazing. That's not to say the pork wasn't perfect. It was moist, perfectly cooked, delicious. That said, this could be made with chicken or fish and I think it would be just as fabulous. Can you tell I don't want to alienate my pork-less readers? It's true. I just want to spread the love of this dish with as many as possible. It was that good.

This dish consists of three parts, pork, a sweet potato slaw and a chili kiwi sauce. They all combine to create the divine image above. I have listed the ingredients below in the three parts, some overlap. Cooking instructions are listed in each section. I hope it makes it easy to follow. Pure unrefined coconut oil is something we're starting to experiment with. It's the only non-meat oil that dries solid. We found it easily at a local Indian grocery store, you can also find it in food coops, Whole Foods probably has it too. The Thai chili we used was from our garden last year (they freeze remarkably well). If you can't find one, almost any hot chili would work, you could probably also just use a cayenne or Serrano chile if you don't want a lot of heat, just don't use a jalapeno. 

Since there are three distinct parts, timing could be a slight issue. AC re-uses frying pans (cook the onions in the pan you use for the park) and has the sauce cooking simultaneously. It would probably be best to prep everything, get the pans ready, put the potatoes in the steamer, the sauce ingredients in the sauce pan and then start it all at once. It sounds like a lot of steps, but it all happens very quickly.  

You need to begin with a piece of pork that was marinated for 2 hours in a dark, sweet, Chinese soy sauce. AC swears it would have been sufficient to marinate for 30 minutes, if quick weeknight cooking is your desire. The whole working-from-home thing works in our favor for this one.

Pork Ingredients
1 Ziploc bag
2 boneless pork chops
Sweet Chinese soy sauce
Kanchai powder
Black pepper
Dried basil
Coconut oil

To prepare the pork:
Place the pork in the Ziploc bag and cover with the soy sauce, let it sit in your refrigerator for a minimum of 30 minutes, maximum 2 hours. Turn the bags over every so often. Make sure the pork has come to room temperature or out of the refrigerator for one hour before cooking.


Sweet Potato Slaw Ingredients
1 medium sweet potato (not a yam) sliced thin
1/2 medium red onion, sliced thin
Salt to taste
Coconut oil


Slaw Instructions:
In a stove top steamer, steam the sweet potato for about 5 minutes, until cooked. While they potatoes are steaming saute the red onion in coconut oil, add a pinch of salt, saute until slightly translucent. Combine with the sweet potatoes. Place on top of the completed potatoes that are still in the steamer and leave the lid on.  This will keep them warm until the pork and sauce are complete.

Chili Kiwi Sauce Ingredients
1/8 c white balsamic vinegar
1/4 c dry vermouth
1-2 tsp fresh lemon juice
1 tsp coconut oil
1 small kiwi without skin, finely chopped
1 Thai chili pepper, minced (use gloves!)
1/2 tsp dried rosemary
2 pinches salt

Pork and Sauce Instructions:

You will need to do the final prep of the pork and cook the sauce at the same time.

First begin with the sauce - add the balsamic, dry vermouth, minced chili, rosemary and salt to a small sauce pan. Bring to a medium boil and start to reduce it until its thick.  You want to try to time the sauce to be thick when the pork is complete.

Remove the pork from the bag, cover liberally, on all sides with kanchai powder, black pepper and dried
basil. Heat a frying pan (one with a cover) on medium high heat. Add about 1 tbsp of coconut oil to the pan. Place the pork in the frying pan, cook for 2 minutes, flip the pork, cook on the other side for another 1 1/2 minutes. Add about 2 tbsp of water to the pan, cover and cook for another minute.

When the sauce is reduced and the pork is complete, remove from heat. [Put the pork on the bed of mixed potato and slaw.] Add the lemon juice, and kiwi to the reduced sauce. Sort of cook the finely chopped kiwi for a 1 minute in the sauce and then pour it all on top of the pork and slaw.

Done. Just for motivation, I'll give you another look...


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