| | ALL right, there’s meat in this recipe. But it’s okay. 
Few know the cut matters when eating meat which is why you choose white meat in chicken for it carries less fat and cholesterol than the dark meat. Even pork, beef and lamb are all right, provided you pick the right cut. I have learnt that the fillet (sometimes called the tenderloin) of such meats are good lean cuts of flavourful meat that carry little fat and not so much cholesterol. And if we eat it Asian style, that is, teaming a few slivers with rice, and augmenting it with lots of cucumbers and lettuce, no one needs feel guilty about eating meat. Today’s recipe is a sort of char siew, that is, a soya sauced pork that is fried. It is full of sweet, salty and caramelized flavours and takes just minutes to turn out. My grandmother used to make it but I had forgotten all about it until I decided one day to give the nieces and nephews a taste of all the foods that their parents had grown up with. So I served this pork. Of course I had to update the recipe, that is, cook the dish with less fat and add more vegetables. In the case of the fried pork, I opted for the fillet, as opposed to the pork shoulder that my grandmother would have used. I also trimmed the meat of all visible fat and used innocuous canola oil for frying, just a spoonful of it. And yes, served the pork in a lettuce leaf topped with lots of raw onions and chilli with sliced cucumbers on the side.
Ingredients: Fried char siew (For 4-6) - 500 g pork fillet (or tenderloin)
Marinade: - 1 Tbs. light soya sauce
- 2 Tbs. thick dark soya sauce
- 1 Tbs. sugar
- 1/2 tsp. salt or to taste
- Pepper to taste
Garnish: - 2 cucumbers, sliced
- 1 onion, sliced into rings
- 2-3 red chilllis, sliced
- I small head of lettuce
- 4-5 limes, halved
Method: - Trim all visible fat from the pork and slice it when half frozen – it is easier. To do this, place trimmed meat into the freezer for about half an hour before slicing.
- Slice it across the grain on the diagonal. Marinate pork slices for at least an hour.
- Heat wok till it is hot and add a spoonful of canola oil into it. Fry the pork, spreading out the meat so that it sears rather than steams. The meat juices will soon emerge creating a lovely sauce for the rice.
- Separate the lettuce leaves. Wash and drain leaving them whole.
- To serve, place a few pieces of pork on each leaf, and top with the sliced onions and chillies, squeezed first with lime juice.
- This fried char siew is truly a tasty (and now healthy) blast from the past
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