Stir-fried Shredded Pork with Green Chiles and Cilantro

JS:
We had a stir-fried pork dish with peppers at a couple of restaurants around town. I like the flavours in the dish so much that I thought I'd replicate the dish at home. It's really a very simple, home-style dish.

The hardest part of the whole thing is deseeding the jalapeño peppers. Now, of course, one can just leave and cook with the seeds, but I'm afraid that would make it inedibly spicy for some of our family members.

TS:
(Pssst! I was surprised JS actually had the patience to deseed so many jalapeños. The labor-intensiveness of it all!)



JS:
I used pork tenderloin for this dish, and having tried it with pork shoulder, I must say I prefer the tenderloin. While the fattiness of the pork shoulder was welcome, the pork shoulder also added too much sweetness that threw off the flavour balance in the dish for me.



JS:
I marinate the pork tenderloin strips in a bit of Shaoxing wine and soy sauce. I didn't bother with the cornstarch as I'm a bit partial to the juices not being glazy or thick.

Once all the ingredients are prepped, it's a matter of stir-frying like crazy.

Of course, look at the size of our wok and the amount of ingredients that we have there, and it's a guarantee that I'm not going to get any sort of wok-hei. I can live with no wok-hei, though -- it's good enough although I admit the smokiness would add another dimension to the dish.




Cook aromatics, then pork strips. Add the jalapeño, salt, Shaoxing wine, Chinkiang vinegar, a dash of white pepper, and finally, the cilantro.

JS:
Throw in a generous amount of cilantro (stems are okay), towards the end, just to wilt it a bit, and it's quite a satisfying dish.

There's some heat from the jalapeños, but the heat is pushed to the background, letting that unique slightly bitter, slightly sweet, all vegetal-fruitiness, of the peppers shine.



eatingclub Chinese

Recipe
Stir-Fried Shredded Pork with Green Chiles and Cilantro

1 lb pork tenderloin, cut into thin strips
1 tbsp Shaoxing wine, for marinating pork
1 tbsp soy sauce, for marinating pork

1/2 lb jalapeño peppers, deseeded and cut into strips
1/2 inch ginger, cut into slivers
1 clove garlic, minced

1 tbsp Shaoxing wine, for stir-frying
salt to season
dash of white pepper
1 tsp Chinkiang vinegar

a handful or two of cilantro

Marinate pork with Shaoxing and soy sauce while you prep the other ingredients.

Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a wok. Add ginger and garlic until fragrant. Add pork strips. When pork strips are halfway cooked through, add jalapeño pepper strips. Add Shaoxing wine. Season with salt and pepper and add Chinkiang vinegar towards the end. Toss in cilantro.

Serve with plain white rice.

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