Minced Pork with Tofu

This dish is simple to make and delicious to eat at home. It doesn’t require much preparation and takes less than an hour to cook.

Ingredients

• 500 gram lean pork mince
• 3 cloves garlic
• fresh ginger
• a bunch of coriander
• 1 tablespoon brown bean paste
• 1/2 teaspoon soy chilli sauce
• 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
• 1 tablespoon Chinese cooking wine
• 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1/2 teaspoon dark soy sauce
• firm tofu
• fried puff tofu
• 2-3 cups of chicken stock

Cooking

1. The only preparation that is required is chopping the garlic, ginger, coriander and slicing the firm tofu into small bite pieces. This should take approximately 10 – 15 minutes
2. Next heat a non-stick saucepan in medium-high heat. Once the saucepan is hot enough, toss in the pork mince and fry until the meat is almost cooked
3. Remove the cooked meat and set aside
4. In the same saucepan, wipe with a kitchen paper towel until it is almost dry. Then add some cooking oil and turn up the heat to high
5. Toss in the chopped garlic, followed by chopped ginger. Then add the brown bean paste. Mix and fry all the ingredients together until they are aromatic
6. Add the pork mince that was previously set aside. Then add the firm tofu and a few pieces of fried puff tofu for the texture
7. Continue to stir fry and mix all the ingredients through. Add the oyster sauce, dark soy sauce, cooking wine and sesame oil. And, a bit of chilli sauce or chilli oil if you prefer your dish a bit spicy. Mix through and stir fry for a few more minutes. Then add the chicken stock. Lower the heat to slow simmer for ten minutes
8. Once ready to serve, add the chopped coriander

This dish will go well with either some steamed rice or noodles. However, I have decided to match my dish tonight with quinoa. I have cooked quinoa many times. But tonight is the first time I cooked my quinoa in a claypot. By itself, quinoa is flavourless, plain and unexciting. It is best cooked using some flavoured stock. I used chicken stock with 1/2 teaspoon of turmeric powder. Once the quinoa is almost cooked, I added a bunch of Thai sweet basil.