Laura Banford: Easy International Cooking, where I will show you how to go around the world without ever leaving your kitchen. The dish we are going to prepare today is Caramelized Pork with Shanghai noodles. It's an aromatic stew that has many of the flavors and aromas that you associate with China. The ingredients you will need are -- one pound of Shanghai noodles, one pound of pork tenderloin sliced into strips, grapeseed oil, five cloves of garlic, five slices of fresh ginger, two stems of lemon grass, two cups of chicken stock, four tablespoons of fish sauce, bamboo shoots, lime juice and coriander.
The pieces of equipment you will need are a large wok, a pair of tongs and a couple of sharp knives. In order to clean lemon grass, you must remove the tough outer stock. Then you need to chop it from the base, from the root end for about two-and-a-half inches. I need 5 slices of ginger, in order to get the slices from the figures of ginger you have to peel off the tough outer skin. I need five cloves of garlic for this recipe. I am going to cut the head of garlic in half, and then smash the cloves to help them release their flavor and make it easier to peel the skin. We have a pork tenderloin here that's very lean and I have got to slice it into thin strips.
Now we are going to start to cook our pork. I have the pan heated. I am adding some grapeseed oil, because it's nice and neutral and it shimmering, so I know it's ready right away. I am going to drop in my pork. Hear that sizzle. That's what you want to hear when you're cooking. I just want to get the pork to brown on each side. See a little bit of brown on there. Don't force it. If it doesn't come right off of the bottom of the pan, that means it's not ready. You wanted to form a little bit of a crust, it's called searing. We are searing the pork right now. Some pepper, salt. Now you see how the pork releases from the bottom of the pan. It's just has as soon as it forms the crust, it's ready to come off the bottom of the pan and it be turned. If you do it too early you got to rip the meat. Okay, it's almost done. We just want to sear it and get this out of the pan. Okay, the dish moves pretty quickly at this point.
What we are going to do now is add our sugar, and stir it around a little bit. We call them as caramelized pork, we are actually making a little bit of a caramel sauce, and before that goes too far, let's see, I want to see a little color on the sugar. Start to see a little bit of color there and there, could add some water. Let that get to a simmer and see, it take a little bit more color. Looks like it's thickening a little bit, and we are going to add garlic, ginger, lemon grass, stock and fish sauce. Fish sauce is going to give it a nice depth of flavor and that way up, when it gets to a simmer, see all those nice great achromic Asian ingredient. Now that we have gotten the broth to a simmer, let bring our pork back in. I am going to bring the heat down to a simmer and cover it and let that simmer for 15 minutes.
Okay, we simmered our stew, then we are going to add some slice bamboo shoots to give it a little crunch, that's why we add these at the end. Lime juice which will perk up the flavor, and our Shanghai noodles that we have already boiled. Oh, that looks delicious. You want to make a real authentic mainland China dish. This is it. Look it that. That looks very restorative. Now getting ready to plate it. We just pull some of the noodles and the pork out with those bamboo shoots. Make it nice and crunchy and soupy. This is Chinese comfort food right now. Add some nice broth. All our Asian flavors, and we are going to garnish that with a little cilantro and there you go. Caramelized pork with Shanghai noodles. The smell and the taste of this will put you right into the hustle bustle of Shanghai harbor.
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