Peanut pork with shredded Brussels
A formula rather than a recipe. Ground meat, a vegetable shredded fine, a peanut sauce built in the empty half of the pan.
At a Glance
Story
Peanut butter will not dissolve into a hot pan by being stirred at. Push the cooked food to one side, put the soy sauce, vinegar, sriracha and peanut butter into the bare metal, and work them together there where the heat and the liquid can get at it. Then fold it through. Skip that and you get lumps of peanut butter and a thin brown puddle.
Ingredients
- 1 lb ground pork
- 8 oz Brussels sprouts
- 1 tbsp untoasted sesame oil
- 2 cloves garlic
- ½ cup cilantroleaves and tender stems
- 3 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 ½ tbsp rice vinegar
- 2 tbsp creamy peanut butter
- 1 ½ tbsp sriracha
- toasted sesame seedsto finish
- saltpepper
Method
Caroline Chambers calls this a formula rather than a recipe, and she is right. Ground meat plus a finely shredded vegetable plus a peanut sauce works with almost anything in the drawer.
The Brussels want to be genuinely shredded. Halve them, lay them flat and slice them to shreds, or pulse the lot in a food processor and be done.
- Halve the sprouts, lay them flat side down, and slice them as thinly as your patience allows.
- Warm the sesame oil in a large skillet over medium-high. Pork and a good pinch of salt in, broken into small crumbles, 7 to 9 minutes, until it is cooked through and no longer pink.
- Sprouts in. 3 to 4 minutes, stirring occasionally and raising the heat if you need color on them. Grate the garlic in for the last 30 seconds. Chop the cilantro, stir it through, then scooch everything to one side.
- Soy sauce, vinegar, peanut butter and sriracha into the bare half. Work them into a smooth-ish sauce right there, then stir it into the pork and sprouts until everything is coated.
- Taste for salt and heat. Sesame seeds over.
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