A Goofball, a Gift, and a Giveaway!

Recipe below: Wasabi Ginger Soy Pulled Pork Ribs

If you read food blogs with any regularity, you’ve probably heard of CSN stores. They’re kind of like another popular online shopping website (you know, the one that started as a bookseller?) in that they sell everything...dinnerware, cookware, appliances, even fitness equipment! And one of their genius methods of marketing is sponsoring blog giveaways...can you guess where I’m going with this?

Welcome to Bananas for Bourbon’s very first giveaway! One lucky winner will be awarded a one-time-use $40 gift certificate, good at any of CSN’s 200+ online stores. Lucky ducky! I’ve entered many a giveaway for one of these puppies, but was never fortunate enough to win. So good luck!

To enter: leave a comment on this post telling me your favorite Bananas for Bourbon recipe so far. Make sure you provide an email address if there isn’t one linked to your profile.

For additional entries, do one or all of the following, then come back and leave a separate comment for each, letting me know the deed is done.

1. Become a fan of (“Like”) Bananas for Bourbon on Facebook, and if you already are, just say so! 
2. Subscribe to my blog via an RSS feed (just click that “Follow” button in the toolbar on the right), and if you already do, just say so! 
3. Post a link to this giveaway on your blog, and let me know about it. 

The rules: open to US and Canada residents only, as that is where CSN store's products ship. The giveaway closes on Tuesday, August 10th at 11:59pm PST. The winner will be selected by a random number generator and announced (and contacted!) sometime on Wednesday.



I was actually glad to have the opportunity to facilitate this giveaway because I feel like I won my own giveaway this week. Imagine my surprise when, completely out of the blue, I received a package on my doorstep containing this:

OMG! Whatever could be the cause of this wonderfulness? I'm not worthy!  Thankfully, there was a helpful note. Turns out my most awesome friend and former college roommate could relate to my predicament of being low on funds while trying to expand my culinary horizons, and she instructed me to consider it an investment in my future food blogging adventures. I almost cried, I was so happy. If there is one thing this unemployment experience has taught me, it’s that people can be truly beautiful during times of discord.  I'm not worthy!  I am definitely taking this seriously, and plan to post a recipe (eventually!) for each and every time shown.  If you can't read the labels, there are 4 sauces (honey barbecue, wasabi ginger, vidalia onion fig, and maple chipotle garlic) and 4 pestos (sun-dried tomato, basil, black olive, and artichoke).  

Now let's take a minute to drool and make noises...

Ok, back.  I've seen some Stonewall Kitchen products around a few random spots, like in winery shops and that kind of thing, and I have always drooled quite a bit over the vidalia onion fig sauce.  I can't wait to try that one, and I already have something in mind...  If any of these goodies sound especially delicious to you, leave me a comment with what you would would make!

I’m far from an expert when it comes to cuts of meat, seeing as how I’m still fairly new to eating meat, so I had to put on my thinking cap when I saw pork shoulder country style ribs on super sale at the store. They were large chunks of meat on the bone, obviously not like a baby back. Since pork shoulder meat always does so well in the slow cooker, I figured I would try braising them in the wasabi ginger sauce. Bones = flavor, after all!  I ended up cooking them low and slow in the oven with just a portion of the sauce along with some soy sauce and other delicious flavorings. Then when the pork was falling off the bone and delicious, I shredded it up and tossed it with the rest of the wasabi ginger sauce.  And since the sauce was a gift and the pork was on sale, it cost me less than $10.  Take that, Melissa D'Arabian!  Except not, because the sauce was a gift and the pork was on sale...  But whatever!

How good was this pork? Well, Husband came home and had an entire bowl for dinner. Then he got up and attempted to refill the bowl for a second helping. I had to beat him away with a stick words of reason in a very scolding tone! If that’s any indication. The pork was tender and succulent, and since it cooked on the bone, it had the rich pork flavor. Yum! I was glad I waited until after the pork was cooked to toss it with the sauce, or I think it would have gotten lost during the braise. The sauce itself is pretty sweet.  There are like 3 different kinds of sugar (sugar, brown sugar, and honey) listed in, I think, the first 5 or 6 ingredients, and it's not at all spicy, like I would expect something with wasabi in the name to be, but that said, it's a tasty sauce!  And I am, admittedly, very sensitive to sweet things since I've been weaned from processed foods and the like.  The application for the sauce, in my most humble opinion, was right on!  If you felt a little acid was necessary, you could always throw in a splash if lime juice or vinegar, but I think it was balanced enough as it was.

Overall, I would call this dish a success! Next time I see those ribs on sale, they’re getting snatched up quick! Next time I want to try adding a little wasabi powder or Sriracha hot sauce to the braising liquid, just to infuse a little heat while it cooks.

The only problem with this recipe is that it results in this:

Goodbye wasabi ginger sauce!  I hardly knew you!  And yet, you will fill my belly with deliciousness for days to come!

So thanks, friend! Thanks for so fantastically cheering me up.  I needed it. Thanks for believing in my cooking and food blogging. I'm touched.  And thanks for being a good person and a great friend. You are inspiring. I hope my first recipe didn't disappoint!

Wasabi Ginger Soy Pulled Pork Ribs

Makes about 8 servings

~4 pounds pork shoulder country style ribs
1 TB ginger, minced
5-6 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 TB mirin
1 TB rice wine vinegar
1 11 fl.oz bottle Stonewall Kitchen Wasabi Ginger Sauce, divided
8oz button mushrooms, sliced (optional)

1. Preheat your oven to 275 degrees. 
2. Place the ribs in an even layer in a dutch oven or other covered oven-safe vessel. Add the ginger, garlic, soy sauce, mirin, rice wine vinegar, and 1/4 cup of the wasabi ginger sauce, then toss until the ribs are coasted. Add the mushrooms, if using. 
3. Cover and cook for 4-5 hours, or until the pork is tender and falling off the bone. 
4. Transfer the mushrooms and pork to a bowl, leaving the bones behind, and shred it with a fork. Toss it with the remaining wasabi ginger sauce, and serve. 

Serving suggestions: over a bed of wilted spinach or steamed bok choy, in lettuce cups, beside an Asian slaw, in soft tortillas topped with cabbage, as a slider, or whatever tickles your fancy! 

What are you still doing here?  Go make pulled pork!  Oh, right. You want to know where the goofball mentioned in the post title comes in, eh?  Well, how about this guy:

What can I say?  I'm a sucker for alliteration and things in threes. 

The Bright Side of Car Troubles

Recipe below: Somewhat Authentic Thai Green Curry

Speaking of bright sides, my life is such a comedy of errors at the moment, that I’m constantly focusing on the positives to keep sane. I’d rather laugh at my misfortunes than cry over them any day...and laugh I have! Small talk with my neighbors usually begins with their inquiring after any new disasters that have sprung up since last they saw me, and I can usually deliver on a good story to make us both chuckle. Usually centering around my car, lately. Batteries, tires, radiators. I’ve dealt with it all!

Sure, a leaking radiator isn’t exactly roll on the ground hilarious, but what about when I add that the extended warranty on the car just so happened to expire about a month before said leakage? Yes, that really happened.  Of course it did! 7 years and never a problem that the warranty would cover. But 7 years and 1 month? Well...you see what I mean. Ridiculous!

I also answer to Murphy.


What does all this complaining have to do with anything? Well that brings me to the particular bright side of my constant car troubles. The Asian Market! It’s right down the street from the dealership, and since that neighborhood is about 15 miles away from my house, it’s not very convenient to go regularly. So when Husband and I have to make the trek for some mechanical misfortune or other, we secretly look forward to the stop at 99 Ranch right after. Did I mention they have pork bao the size of my head? And the best darned red bean paste sesame balls, my personal favorite! We always stop at the bakery first to stock up before making the long trek up and down the many aisles.

Sure, most of the ingredients we save up to buy at the Asian market we could easily get in any well-stocked grocery store. But they cost twice as much, and the selection sucks! Did you know there are brands of soy sauce and rice wine vinegar that aren't Kikkoman? I know! Blew my mind when I first found out too.

Then again, there are ingredients that are essential to authentic Asian cuisine that for whatever reason haven’t made it into any of the 10 or so grocery stores in my area. Disappointing, isn’t it? It’s where I buy my miso paste, rice flour, red bean paste, and oodles and oodles of seaweed! I love the seaweed sprinkles that are tossed with toasted sesame seeds. It’s a great topping for rice, popcorn, or any dish that needs a little salty pizazz. Husband loves the sheets of the hot and spicy seaweed so much he buys them 8 containers at a time! It’s really a healthy snack, nicely filling without containing any substantial calories, and a wee bit of protein. Yum!

Don't eat that keffir lime leaf!

But what I really get excited about when I go there are the fixings for Thai food! Sure, a lot of stores now carry lemongrass, but what about keffir lime leaves and Thai basil? My favorite Thai restaurant would never offer my favorite dishes without them! And since I usually only frequent the store when the heavens decide to break my car (more often than I’d like!), I always take advantage of at least a couple of specialty ingredients I can’t buy anywhere closer. If you haven’t already guessed, I’m talking about curry!

I love curry. I used to talk food constantly with a former manager, and she would always marvel at my love of sauce. I love food drenched in a rich and flavorful sauce. Who doesn’t? It makes everything taste fantastic! And curries are the epitome of big flavors: warm, spicy, earthy, and herbaceous. They taste so complicated, but like so many dishes, curries are totally doable! Yes, I mean doable for you!  You know what the trick is? Finding a good quality curry paste. I’d like to make my own at some point, but if you don’t want to go through all the trouble, 99 Ranch has an excellent selection of tasty curry pastes, and your local Asian market probably does too! I went for green. It’s spicy from lots of chile peppers! Husband and I like spicy! You could just mix the curry paste with coconut milk for the sauce base, it would be deliciously simple. But I wanted to brighten the dish with some fresh ingredients already in the paste to make the flavor a bit more definitive and lively.

Now I’m the first to admit that this curry is anything but authentic. Or rather, I was going for authentic curry flavors, but I threw in some other totally inauthentic veggies along with it because they’re delicious and it’s my curry, so I’ll cook what I want to! I opted for classics like onion, carrots, baby bok choy, and mushrooms, but that just wasn’t substantial enough for me. I wanted more! So I also threw in celery and frozen peas because I love greenery, water chestnuts for their lovely crunch, and some red potatoes for texture. Yum!

As far as the sauce goes, garlic, ginger, and lemongrass are the holy trinity of deliciousness. Lemongrass is an ingredient I haven’t experimented with extensively, but I love the sunny, grassy flavor. When preparing the fibrous stock for consumption, just cut off most of the the top and the nub at the bottom and remove the first few layers until you’re left with a tender bit a few inches long. It doesn't look like much, but it goes a long way.  Make sure you mince it up nice and tiny so you get the flavor without any chewy bits. Keffir lime leaves, like lemongrass, are wonderfully aromatic. I treat them like bay leaves and throw them in with the simmering sauce for flavor, but remember not to eat them! I’ve substituted regular Italian basil for Thai basil before, and it certainly works in a pinch, but Thai basil is such a better compliment to the dish. Trust me. Nothing beats the intoxicating aroma of Thai basil.  And with no booze in this recipe, we need our kicks somehow, right? And then there’s the fish sauce. You’re not afraid of fish sauce, are you? I used it think it was nasty, but it turns out it was just an inferior product I had purchased. Good fish sauce is delicious! Not by itself, of course, but just a little bit added to the dish adds a salty, deep flavor (umami!) without being fishy in the slightest! The trick is just to show a little restraint. Don’t skip the fish sauce, trust me!  I opted not to get the Thai peppers.  I could only buy them about 20 at a time, and yikes!  That's a lot of heat!  Also, that's kind of the point of the curry paste.  All the heat are already in there!

This dish was awesome. Better than I expected. I love it when that happens! The flavors all came together so amazingly well, and the spicy kick was just right, so they weren’t masked. I usually go for brown jasmine rice, but this time I served the curry over quinoa. It’s a vegetarian dish, so I wanted the complete protein quinoa gives. Not to mention it cooks twice as fast. It’s seriously the best grain ever!

Now, with any luck I'll go many, many moons without being in the neighborhood of the Asian market again!


An aside: I tried to talk a little bit about the more exotic ingredients in this dish, but I didn't want to get all educational on you if you already know what the heck I'm talking about.  If you want to know more, feel free to email me or leave me a comment!

Somewhat Authentic Thai Green Curry

Makes about 8 servings

1 large onion, chopped
2 large carrots, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 medium red potatoes, cubed
6 bunches of baby bok choy, chopped
8oz beech mushrooms
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 inch nob of ginger, minced (about 1 TB)
1 stalk lemongrass, tough outer leaves removed and discarded and the tender core minced
1 tsp coriander
1/2 tsp white pepper*
approximately 2 TB green curry paste (more or less to taste)
1 can coconut milk (I used light)
1 tsp fish sauce
5-6 keffir lime leaves**
1/2 cup Thai basil leaves
1 package frozen peas
1 can water chestnuts, chopped
4 stalks green onion, sliced into rounds
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped

1. In a large saute pan or wok over medium heat, sweat the onions, carrots, celery, and potatoes until they give off their water and begin to soften, about 5-7 minutes. Add the baby bok choy and mushrooms, and cook for another 5 minutes. Finally, add the garlic, ginger, and lemongrass, stir to incorporate, and cook another 2 minutes or so. Everything should be smelling amazing!
2. Stir in the coriander and white pepper, and let it cook for a minute, then add the curry paste, and let it cook for another minute. [Note: If you are concerned about the level of spice, add just 1 TB to begin with (or less!), and incorporate the rest after you add the coconut milk in step 3.]
3. Add the coconut milk (be sure to shake the can before you open it!), fish sauce, and lime leaves. Now is the time to adjust the seasonings if it’s needed. Bring the mixture to a light boil, then turn the heat down and simmer for 10-15 minutes, until the potatoes are soft and the curry is thick and fragrant.
4. Stir in the Thai basil, frozen peas, water chestnuts, and green onion, and cook for just a minute or two, until warmed. 
5. Sprinkle with the cilantro and serve over brown jasmine rice or my choice, quinoa!

*I don't think I've mentioned white pepper before.  It's basically just like black pepper, but milder and it blends in more, color-wise, to a dish.  It's totally optional, or you could use a few pinches of black pepper.  I just like pepper!  I bought the white pepper at Ranch 99, but I've seen it in regular grocery stores too.

**There's not a perfect substitute for keffir lime leaves, but if you're going for a less fussy curry, a splash of lime juice at the end will help give it that brightness it needs.  Just go easy, you don't want it too acidic.

Condiment Obsession

Recipe: Wasabi Tofu "Mayo"

Alright, so last week I left off the 3 Ps discussion with portion.  I've been thinking about what I want to say about the next P ever since.  Proportion. If portion is all about what size your plate is, I think of proportion as deciding what goes on the plate.  A small bowl of chocolate ice cream has a heck of a lot more calories than a bowl of roasted broccoli, and the broccoli has all those wonderful vitamins and minerals, not to mention an awesome little thing called fiber.  Rather than associating fiber with poop, as some may tend to do, try thinking of it as a nutrient in food that makes you feel full and for longer.  And as my mom always said, "it escorts the fat out of your body".

Yes, I mentioned poop on a food blog that's intended to get you to salivate over my delicious recipes. Yes, I can't help myself.  Yes, I'm seeing someone about this problem...or rather, I would be if I could afford a shrink.  I can't even afford a haircut people.  I'm starting to look like cousin it, but frizzy.  Yes, I made chocolate ice cream and roasted broccoli last week, so I have both on the brain.  Yes, they were both delicious.  And yes no, I did not eat them together.

What I'm trying to get at here is that it's all about balance.  We're not supposed to eat all of the same food, right?  Sure, Husband wishes he could eat steak 3 meals a day, but that's just not reasonable.  There are things called food groups, and we're supposed to eat a certain amount of food from each food group each day to get the nutrients we need to be healthy.  You might remember seeing a chart at some point in your life with a picture of a pyramid and random foods all stacked on top of each other and topped with the delicious sweets at the top. You might remember more recently seeing one that is eerily similar but at points different.  I personally don't subscribe to any ancient Egyptian depictions of food proportions.  What do they know?

Now I'm not a nutritionist.  I'm not an expert.  I'm just telling you how I ate to lose weight and get healthy.  Everybody is different.  Everybody has different needs.  You'll have to identify your own needs based on how much you exercise and just how your body chemistry is made up.  I try to eat pretty low in complex carbs (as in grains, breads, pastas, all that tastiness), not because carbs are evil, but because my body just doesn't seem to like a lot of 'em.  I get all icky-digesty and feel sluggish when I eat a heavy-carb based meal.  Not to mention my body seems to burn through carbs like a shopaholic on Black Friday.  I could eat an endless bowl of pasta...forever.  I know this about myself, so I treat carbs as a side component in a meal, rather than the star.  Also, since I exercise an above average amount, I eat a fair amount of protein.  Not just meat, but dairy, nuts, beans, lentils, etc.  How do you know what your body needs?  Listen to it!  When you eat a bowl of pasta, how does it make you feel?  Are you hungry again 5 minutes later?  I wasn't a big meat eater until very recently, and I ate protein in general pretty sparingly.  Then I started exercising, and high protein foods not only started tasting better to me, but I was actually craving them!  I wanted meat!  That was my body telling me it needed more of the nutrient to build my big strong muscles I was working so hard for.

But of course, those pesky macro-nutrients overlap (protein, carbohydrates, and fat).  Protein does not = meat.  Carb does not = bread.  Fat does not = butter.  Let's not be so cut and dry and try being reasonable. And you need each one of those macro-nutrients, so don't cut anything out!  It's not about low fat or low carb.  It's all about balance.  In other words, proportion!

There's one main guideline I like to follow: eat as many vegetables as you want.  Vegetables are so stinking healthy and low in calories (compared to volume), that I'll bet I would be physically sick before I could eat enough to get fat.  And I'm not talking about corn soaked in butter, people.  Be reasonable.  You know why?  Fiber!  Vegetables are chalked full of it!  Not to mention vitamins, minerals, sometimes a bit of protein, and sometimes a bit of sugar to make 'em yummy.  That means vegetables make you feel full.  And when you're full, you tend to stop eating.  That's always my problem. The stopping of the eating.

So here's what I do when building my plate (and that would be the appropriately sized small plate we discussed).  I fill half of it with vegetables.  That's right.  Half.  That's half your stomach room going to something that's rich in nutrients and that's going to stick with you for a solid few hours.  Now hear me out!  Sure, half a plate of green beans doesn't appeal as much as filling half that plate with garlic bread or pork chops.  Or rather, they don't right now.  You want to know something funny?  My taste buds completely changed with my eating habits, not to mention my attitude.  I started off this whole thing tolerating the vegetables.  They were something to get through.  Then as I ate them more, I started finding better ways to cook them.  Sure, steamed broccoli is ok, but if you roast it in the oven it's 20 million times tastier!  Cabbage braised with a horseradish sauce?  Delicious!  I say my taste buds changed, but I think really my approach to cooking vegetables is what improved.  The veggies don't have to be plain.  It's ok to spice them up with sauces, spices, and additions like nuts.  Make a complete dish that you want to eat.  When I started putting some real effort into preparation, everything starting tasting better.  Before I knew it, I was craving vegetables!  I'm not even exaggerating!  Last time I visited my parents my mom kept laughing at how insistent I was that our meals at home consist of enough vegetables to handle me.  "That salad is enough for me, but what about the rest of you?"  Give vegetables a chance.  And not just lettuce!  Don't just go home and eat a salad for dinner.  Spice it up!  I rarely eat lettuce.  Sure, it's healthy, but it's mostly water and doesn't stick with me like heartier vegetables do.  Not to mention it's rather boring!

So our plate is half full with vegetables, now what?  I usually split what's left in half and fill one remaining quarter with protein, and the other with whole grains.  Now from this description you're probably envisioning a plate split into three sections, one with some boring plain vegetable, one with a piece of meat, and one with some brown rice.  That's not really how you have to eat.  That's just what the proportions should look like.  Use that idea to make a complete combined dish, by all means!  For instance, I made a thai curry last week.  I used a ton of vegetables.  I spooned an appropriate amount of the vegetable curry mixture over some quinoa.  Not a bowlful, mind you.  Quinoa is a super healthy ancient grain that's very high in protein.  I had some cooked chicken left over from another dish, so I put an ounce or two on top.  At the end of the meal, I think my proportions were about right.  It's not a hard and fast rule, it's a guideline to keep in mind when you're building your meals.  And being mindful of proportion is definitely one of the main factors that led to my weight loss.

Now I know I've left some stuff out, like fruit and dairy.  I actually eat quite a bit of fruit, but I eat it with breakfast and as a snack later in the day, not generally as part of a main meal.  Same with dairy.  If they make it into other meals, great.  In my book you can't have too much fruit either.  Just don't eat it in place of vegetables.  

There's so much to say on this subject!  But I'll have to cut it short in the interest of theoretical finite interweb space.

To say it much, much more succinctly, don't just think about total calories.  Think about eating the right calories that are going to make you feel the best.  Just remember, portion is all about how much food you eat, and proportion is all about the type of food you eat.

Time to change gears and get to a recipe already!  I was watching Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives on Food Network a few weeks ago and they were talking to this guy that does grilled cheese sandwiches.  He made this one sandwich with seared ahi and what he called wasabi mayonnaise.  But it wasn't mayonnaise at all!  It was tofu he combined in a food processor with wasabi powder and a bunch of other Asian-inspired ingredients.  Genius!  I decided to give it a go with a few additions of my own, and the results were pretty much spectacular.

It sounds odd, I know, but trust me.  This stuff is addictive!  I have been eating it on anything and everything ever since.  As a salad dressing on baby spinach, on brown rice sprinkled with seaweed and sesame seeds (that was such a wonderful combo), and drizzled over chicken tacos.  Yum!  For demonstration purposes (i.e. the picture at the top of this post) I poured some over some leftover quinoa I was snacking on.  That was delicious too.

The great thing about this stuff is it's super healthy!  If not for the tiny bit of sesame oil, it would basically be fat free, and since tofu is the base, you get a good punch of protein.  You're probably wondering how the tofu flavor comes through, and the answer is it doesn't at all.  The tofu gives a creamy, mayonnaise-like texture, but the flavor comes completely from the other ingredients.  The green onions and cilantro really brighten the mayo, and the wasabi powder gives it a nice kick and complex flavor.  The mirin and sweet soy sauce give it a bit of needed sweetness, which could easily be substituted with sugar and some added soy sauce if you don't have them in your pantry.  Ginger and garlic are a must in my book, but I didn't have any fresh, so I used powdered, and it worked just fine.  It's a recipe you can play around with.  I just kept throwing in ingredients until it tasted good to me.

This is definitely something you can throw together with whatever you have in your pantry and refrigerator.  As long as your combination of flavors is good, your mayo will be delicious.  You could even go in a completely different direction, and nix the Asian flavors all together.  You could try sun-dried tomatoes, basil, garlic, and some red pepper flakes for an Italian sub.  Maybe some good chili powder, cilantro, green onions, and jalapeños for a chicken quesadilla?  The possibilities are endless!

I bought a bunch of 8oz squeeze bottles at Smart & Final a few months ago.  Best purchase ever.  They were just a couple of bucks, and are great for storing various homemade condiments like strawberry puree I like to keep on hand for topping desserts, bbq sauce from scratch, and this wasabi mayo!

This recipe is also very budget friendly.  I bought the tofu on sale for $.99, the cilantro and green onion bunches were $.25 each, and everything else was just little bits from my pantry.  You can't buy a jar of mayonnaise for that!

Sure, it sounds weird, but it's also delicious, so give it a try!

Wasabi Tofu "Mayo"
inspired by the sandwich dude on Triple D

Makes about 12oz

1 package silken tofu, drained
3 stalks green onion, chopped
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
1 heaping TB wasabi powder
1 TB fresh ginger, minced, or 1 tsp ground ginger
3 cloves garlic, minced, or 2 tsp garlic powder
2 TB soy sauce
2 TB rice wine vinegar
2 TB sesame oil
2 TB mirin (sweet rice wine)
juice of 1 lime
1 TB sweet soy sauce (or use extra soy sauce and a little sugar)

1. Combine all ingredients in a food processor and processes until everything is well incorporated.  Taste mixture, and adjust seasoning to your liking.
2. Pour the mayo into a squeeze bottle or tupperware for storage.   

Deliciously Sweet, Contrarily Sour

Recipe: Sweet and Sour Pork

This dish is a bit like my job search.  You know...at times sweet, and other times, um, sour. Pungent. Acrid. Biting. I totally broke out the thesaurus on that one.  Anyway, I had a bit of a rough week, on the job front, that is.  I wish I had some of this on hand to brighten things up because, while in life sour is generally inauspicious, in food it can be part of a necessary balance.  A delicious, delectable balance.  I'm putting the thesaurus away now, I promise.

I made this many weeks ago.  Remember Husband's birthday cake?  Yeah, this was the dinner that preceded dessert.  It turned out far better than I ever dreamed!  See, I'm not actually even a fan of sweet and sour sauce.  I don't like my food cloyingly sweet.  The recipes I see usually call for gobs of sugar (thus the cloy!*), ketchup, cider vinegar, and orange juice.  I know most Chinese food I eat is anything but authentic, but that doesn't even include soy sauce!  It's like the food culture supposedly inspiring the dish is completely lost.  After some hunting around, and massive experimentation in the kitchen, I finally rejiggered** something that has notes of the original Americanized dish, and hints of a more "traditional" Americanized, Chinese-influenced dish. [Phew!  That one was hard to type with a straight face!] That's right, I threw in a little ketchup and sugar, along with some darn soy sauce!  And oyster sauce!  And if we're using vinegar here, it should be rice wine vinegar, right?!

Getting the sauce just right was pretty hard.  The recipe below is definitely not hard and fast measurements.  If it's not sweet enough, add more juice or plum sauce (or ketchup if you must).  If it's not sour enough, add more vinegar.  For salt, add more soy.  For acid, more pineapple juice. You get the idea.  The oyster sauce, I think, gives it a bit more depth of flavor (umami if you'll pardon my buzz word), and the plum sauce gives it some sweetness without that ketchup tang.  But if you don't have plum sauce and oyster sauce on hand, by all means leave them out.  Don't buy them just for this one dish.  A bit more sugar and maybe some Worcestershire sauce would be acceptable substitutes.  Just keep tasting it and adjusting until it tastes just right to you.  This was the blend that was to Husband's taste bud's liking.

I know battered and deep fried chicken is what you normally get at the Chinese fast food joints, but who needs that?  Not only is it unhealthy, but it's unnecessarily unhealthy.  That's the worst kind!  Sure, battered and fried meat is flavorful, but you're lathering your food in sauce.  A flavorful sauce!  And I think the stir-fried pork provided a nice texture contrast to the soft vegetables.

Now I want to talk a little about mirin.  Have you heard of it?  Do you have a bottle in your pantry?  I highly recommend that you do!  It's a sweet rice wine, and I love it.  It has a sweet, mild flavor that goes well in all kinds of Asian-inspired dishes.  I like to use it instead of sugar.  It gives the sweetness I need and a bit more flavor. There's definitely more recipes with mirin on the way, so stock up!  I buy it at my local Asian market, but I've seen it at the major grocery stores too, right by the rice wine vinegar.

It's funny that I went into this dish not even liking sweet and sour sauce, and I came out of it with a new recipe in my arsenal!  Win!  Think you don't like it too?  Give this one a try.



*Is cloy a word?  Did I invent another word?  I guess that's what happens when you're bananas for bourbon.  New words tend to pop up in your repertoire.

**See what I mean?

Sweet and Sour Pork

Makes about 6 servings

1 lb pork loin, sliced into bite sized pieces
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 can chopped pineapple in natural juices (not the kind in syrup), drained and juice reserved
3 stalks green onion, sliced into rounds
vegetable oil

For the marinade:
1 1/2 TB soy sauce
3 tsp mirin (sweet rice wine)
1 1/2 TB sesame oil
1 1/2 TB corn starch

For the sauce:
3 TB ketchup
2 tsp plum sauce
2 tsp oyster sauce
2 tsp corn starch
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp rice wine vinegar
1/2 inch knob of ginger, minced
1/4 cup reserved pineapple juice
1/4 cup orange juice

1. Mix all the ingredients for the marinade and place into a container or ziplock bag with the pork.  Marinate for about 30 minutes.
2. Whisk together the sauce ingredients, adjusting quantities to taste, and set aside.
3. In a wok or saucepan over medium-high heat, add 1 TB of vegetable oil and stir-fry the pork until it is browned on all sides, about 5-7 minutes. Remove the pork from the wok and set aside.
4. Add another TB of vegetable oil, if needed, and stir-fry the bell peppers, onion, and garlic until softened and aromatic.  Add the sweet and sour sauce, pork, and pineapple, and simmer until thickened and lovely, about 10-15 minutes.  Sprinkle in the green onions at the very end.
5. Serve over jasmine rice (preferably brown), and enjoy!