Pantry Clear Out Recipe 5 - Two Hot Tamales' Shrimp and Pork Fried Rice

Still working through a massive bag of basmati rice from the Asian store, but have made excellent progress. We had some pork chops on hand from a recent Used Meat section run, so Pork Fried Rice sounded good.

Love, love, love The Two Hot Tamales, but this was an interesting find because they are usually known for Latin cuisine. They also have a fine restaurant that features street foods. I used to catch their show on the very, very early days of the Food Network, before it became the Carnival Barker's Parade of Guy Fieri and Multiple Baking Contests.

I still watch sometimes. I like Chopped and will sometimes catch Ina Garten for the simplicity of her dishes and her shortcuts that aren't total White Trash ones like The Pioneer Woman. Meow! That having been snarked, I really enjoyed Ree's blog in the early days but now she's Pure WalMart Commerce on the show with a regular dull routine of Married With 4 Kids dishes.

This dish requires leftover rice typically, which in the recipe is specified to be cold. Serious Eats did a Cook's Illustrated Test Kitchen-like experiment on whether you really need day old rice, cold rice or can just go ahead and make up a batch when you are ready to fry. I split the difference and cooked the rice a few hours ahead of time, left it to cool a bit on the stove top then refrigerated for a couple of hours until I was ready for it.

The flame really doesn't do anything.
The skewers are already cooked.
But don't let me ruin the magic.

The other ahead-of-time step is the pork. If you are lucky enough to have leftover Chinese BBQ pork along with your leftover rice, I commend your advance menu planning abilities and superior use of restaurant leftovers. As for us, a dish of Chinese BBQ pork and rice at a restaurant probably wouldn't last until the take out container phase. Unless we started with a Pu Pu Platter. We love those retro Pu Pu Platters with the little flaming Hibatchi.

You can handle the pork very easily. There's no need to prepare an elaborate authentic take on BBQ Pork, but if you'd like to, I recommend the version from The Woks Of Life:

http://thewoksoflife.com/2014/02/chinese-bbq-pork-cha-siu/

You can simply marinate the pork overnight or even for a few hours in hoisin sauce, or go with the marinade I found on All Recipes below, with some minor changes. I grilled the pork on the trusty stove top grill pan for a few minutes a side. The recipe below was probably for fairly thick cut chops. Mine were closer to 1/2 to 3/4 inch, so I only cooked them for about 2 1/2 minutes a side. They'll be a little pink inside that way, which is fine for today's pork, plus they'll get a bit more cooking at the end when everything is married together.

The major change I made to the recipe is to add a little sauce toward the end. It is far more traditional to keep the seasoning simple, with some salt and the barest amount of soy sauce, but we like our Chinese Fired Rice America-ized. Mark Bittman contributes the sauce addition from his How To Cook Everything.

I doubled this recipe because this will make some good lunches for The Colonel to take to work.

Mangia!

Shrimp and Pork Fried Rice

Adapted Mary Sue Milliken & Susan Feniger

         

4 tablespoons peanut oil

1/2 pound medium shrimp, shelled and deveined

2 eggs, beaten with 1 teaspoon sesame oil

1 bunch green onions, finely chopped

2 teaspoons minced garlic

1 teaspoon minced ginger

1 small red bell pepper, finely diced

3 cups cold cooked white rice, broken into separate grains

1/2 cup frozen organic peas, thawed

3 boneless pork chops, prepared with Easy Chinese BBQ pork recipe (below)
Salt

Sauce:
1/4 cup dry white wine
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons sesame oil

Heat a wok or large heavy skillet over high heat. Add 2 tablespoons of the peanut oil and swirl to coat the wok. Add the shrimp and stir-fry just until pink, about 2 minutes. Remove shrimp and reserve. Add eggs to wok and scramble until set, but still slightly runny. Remove from pan, breaking into bite-sized pieces, and wipe wok clean.

Return wok to heat, add remaining 2 tablespoons peanut oil, and swirl to coat the wok. Reduce the heat to medium-high, add the onions, garlic, and ginger and stir-fry until onion is half-cooked, 1 minute. Add the red pepper and stir-fry until just tender but still crisp, about 2 minutes. Add the cold rice, quickly spreading it all over the wok and tossing it to heat through, then fry for about 5 to 7 minutes. (Add a little more oil if the rice is sticking.) When the rice is hot, add the peas and toss to heat through, about 1 minute. Add the pork, reserved shrimp, eggs, salt, and wine and stir fry to heat thoroughly, about 1 minute. Then add the soy sauce and sesame oil and stir fry for another 1 to 2 minutes to heat thoroughly. Serve immediately on a large platter.

Easy Chinese BBQ Pork

Adapted from All Recipes

6 boneless pork chops (cooking time is probably for chops around an inch or a bit more thick)

1/4 cup soy sauce

2 tablespoons honey

2 tablespoons brown sugar

2 tablespoons Chinese rice wine vinegar

2 tablespoons hoisin sauce 2 tablespoons

1 teaspoon Chinese five-spice powder (optional)

Cut pork with the grain into strips 1 1/2- to 2-inches long; put into a large resealable plastic bag.

Stir soy sauce, honey, brown sugar, rice wine vinegar, hoisin sauce, and Chinese five-spice powder together in a saucepan over medium-low heat; cook and stir until just combined and slightly warm, 2 to 3 minutes. Pour the marinade into the bag with the pork, squeeze air from the bag, and seal. Turn bag a few times to coat all pork pieces in marinade.

Marinate pork in refrigerator, 2 hours to overnight.

Preheat an outdoor grill for medium-high heat and lightly oil the grate, or heat a stove top grill over high heat.

Remove pork from marinade and shake to remove excess liquid. Discard remaining marinade.

Cook pork on preheated grill for 3 to 4 minutes a side. Let rest for 5 minutes before cutting.