Dish of Pork with Garlic & Pepper
(click to enlarge)

Pork with Garlic & Pepper


Thailand
Serves:
Effort:
Sched:
DoAhead:  		 2 main
**
45 min
Yes		 Thais liked their food "spicy" even before the Portuguese brought chili peppers from the New World. With this recipe you can enjoy the pre-chili style, but see Comments.

14
20
2-1/2
4
1/4
1
2
oz
cl
t
T
c
T
T
Pork
Garlic
Peppercorns, black
Oil
Soy Sauce, black (1)  
Palm Sugar (2)
Fish Sauce (3)
Prep
  1. Cut PORK crosswise into 1/8 inch thick medallions about 1 by 1-1/2 inches.
  2. Crush GARLIC, chop fine and grind together with Peppercorns (see Note-4).
Run
  1. In a sauté pan heat Oil over medium heat and stir in Garlic mix. Fry stirring vigorously and scraping the bottom of the pan - until it starts to stick too hard to scrape up. Then stir in Pork and fry stirring vigorously until all the raw color is gone.
  2. Stir in the Soy Sauce and Palm Sugar. Turn the heat down and continue to cook stirring for a minute or so, then stir in Fish Sauce and cook stirring for another 3 minutes. Stir in some water if it seems too dry.
  3. Serve with plenty of Jasmine rice.
NOTES:

  1. Black Soy Sauce:

      if you don't have this just fake it up with 2 parts dark soy sauce, 1 part molasses. That's pretty much what it is anyway.

  2. Palm Sugar:

      If you don't have it use demerara or turbinado sugar - not as tasty but it will work.

  3. Fish Sauce:

      This clear liquid is as essential to Southeast Asian cuisine as it was to Imperial Rome. If you are unfamiliar with it, see our Fish Sauce - Introduction page.

  4. Garlic:

      Properly it is smashed to a pulp along with the peppercorns in a large stone mortar - but today a spice grinder and mini-prep food processor can be used. The mortar and pestle do a great job, but pounding that long with a 3 pound pestle is hard on the shoulder.

  5. Comments

      This is powerful stuff so you're going to want to serve it with lots of Jasmine rice and perhaps a cooling cucumber salad on the side.
  7. U.S. measure: t=teaspoon, T=Tablespoon, c=cup, qt=quart, oz=ounce, #=pound, cl=clove in=inch, ar=as required tt=to taste
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