Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Grilled Lemongrass Pork Salad

This recipe reminds me of some of the food from the Vietnamese restaurant we went to in Philadelphia. I am in search of an edible fish sauce for home use. If anyone has any recommendations I'm highly interested. The one I can find at my grocery store is Taste of Thai and I really dislike it. I add a tiny bit when it is called for but I would really like to be able to cook Asian food that I enjoy out at home with a good fish sauce.

Not to bad mouth my grocery store, but I'm also really fed up with the sporadic nature of stocking the shelves that they have. It seems that every week there are one or two ingredients, that every single other time that I go to the store, they are in stock, but the one week that I decide to use them for a recipe they're not on the shelf. This week it was bean sprouts. I bought a can instead but they smelled so bad even after rinsing and drying etc. that I couldn't use them for dinner.

Grilled Lemongrass Pork Salad (adapted from Seasaltwithfood)

10 oz. pork loin, sliced thinly
3 stalks lemongrass, sliced and minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 shallot, minced
2 Tbsp sugar
3 Tbsp dark soy sauce
2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp fish sauce
1 tsp peanut oil
1 pinch kosher salt
1 cucumber, julienned
rice vermicelli, cooked
red leaf lettuce, shredded
½ cup peanuts
1/2 red pepper, julienned
mint leaves, chiffonade
basil, chiffonade

  1. Marinade the pork for about 3 hours in the next nine ingredients (through salt).
  2. Preheat the broiler or grill to high heat.
  3. Grill the pork slices until the meat is done and the edges are nicely charred on both sides. Remove the meat from the grill and cut into smaller slices, if desired. Serve immediately with the rest of the salad ingredients.
To make the marinade easier to make, use a mini prep food processor to mince and combine.
I make a sweet sauce for J to add to his. I microwaved: 1 tbsp dark soy sauce, 1 tbsp chunky peanut butter, 1 tsp wine vinegar, 1/2 tsp sesame oil, and 1 tbsp hoisin sauce. Then I whisked them together.

2 comments:

  1. You should check out the Asian grocery in Harrisburg: K-H Supermarket in the Asia Mall, 1030 S. 13th St. in Harrisburg. They must have like 8 kinds of fish sauce.
    Should Tom pass on any complaints at a certain grocery store about your/their stocking issues?

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  2. It does happen to be that store... :(
    I wanted halloumi a few weeks ago and lemongrass before that. Now they have all those things but not the bean sprouts.

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