Purple Cabbage and Pork Stir Fry

Inspired by many of the Asian themed recipes I’ve been drooling over on Passion4Eating and in my quest for an appropriately sized compartmentalized lunch box for big boo, I stopped in a Japanese market in my old hood. I bought some spring roll papers (which I haven’t used yet) but I also got a ginormous bag of Haiga Brown Rice. The bag claims it is Japan’s most popular variety, a short grain brown sticky rice. I love this stuff! I can’t get enough of it in fried rice, cabbage and pork stir fry, French salad, rice with sautéed onions (saute an onion in a bit of oil until caramelized, then add cooked rice). Tonight I made a double batch of rice and served it with a pot-o-red beans. What’s on the menu tomorrow night? French Salad, mmm.

The rice prep is a little more involved than I’m used to for brown rice, but it’s worth the extra steps. For any of you classically trained chefs, I’m curious to know what the pre-soaking and post-lid-covered-steaming contributes to the final product. It does result in much shorter cook time than I’m used to (about 20 mins) with long grain brown rice (almost an hour). But total time elapse from beginning to end is the same. I guess what I don’t save in time, I do save in electricity??

If you like brown rice, but have never tried a short grain brown rice, give it a shot. It is love at first bite for me.

Pork and cabbage stir fry is a dish I concocted when I was new to organic meat, and organic co-op produce shares. I had bought a pound of organic ground pork (ground pork had never been on my dinner table before this meal), and purple cabbage and one rogue zucchini was in my share, along with a bunch of spring onions. This is the dish that simultaneously hooked me on the challenge of the creating tasty meals using random veggies found in co-op shares and eating onions. Not to mention it’s got the whole “purple food” thing going for it. Needless to say, I-heart-this-meal. Hubby loves it too. The boys are not as eager, and much prefer to eat purple cabbage raw. I hope eventually they come to love the Asian flavors and become ginger fans. For now they munch the cabbage before I cook it, and pick out the rice and meat in the cooked dish.

Kid Appeal Tip If there is an ethnic food you're crazy about but kiddos aren't, don't take it off the menu. It often takes kids a dozen or more exposures before they'll try/like a new food. So if you like it, keep it on the table. This goes for Asian, spicy, Mexican, Mediterranean, etc. Keep presenting it, keep eating it with relish and eventually some or all the kiddos will take to it.

Pork and Cabbage Stir Fry

Sauce (I’m guestimating here, I just add the ingredients to a bowl, the total combined ingredients were about 1/3 cup. My apologies, I'm terrible at using recipes)

1/4 cup soy sauce

1 TBS rice wine vinegar

1 TBS cornstarch

1 TBS toasted sesame seed oil

1 tsp sugar

2 cloves of minced garlic

Whisk all ingredients to combine, set aside. Give it another whisk just before adding to the pan.

Stir Fry

1 pound ground pork (organic valley sells it in a roll in some grocery freezer sections)

1 large diced onion

1 large (three fingers or more??) of thinly sliced ginger

Half a head of shredded red/purple cabbage

1 TBS of sesame seed oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Sauté the onion in a wok or large heavy bottomed pan until translucent. Add the pork and cook through, drain off the fat and return the meat/onion to pan, salt and pepper to taste (remember there is a soy sauce based sauce so don’t go heavy on the salt in this step). Add the ginger and sauté until fragrant and soft. Add the cabbage and cook a couple minutes, more than "wilted", but not too soft. Add the sauce and coat cabbage meat mixture. Sauce will thicken quickly so work it in fast. Serve over brown rice.