Chinese-style pork, broccoli and brown rice with pickled cucumbers

I’ve sort of been craving Cantonese pork ribs lately, but really didn’t want to mess with the bones at work, so I went with pork chops. Sorry about the grossness of the picture. It’s biking season and everything sort of got bashed around.

Chinese-style pork
Ingredients:
2 pork chops, sliced into strips
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp sugar
½ tbsp cooking sherry/rice wine (you can find this in Asian grocery stores)
a small splash of sesame oil
1 tsp hoisin sauce
1 tbsp cornstarch mixed in water for later

Let’s do it!
Mix all the sauces and sugar together and taste. Adjust for sweetness/saltiness. It’s okay if it’s pretty salty, it will be mixing in with pork, and later rice.

Marinate the pork while you’re making the broccoli.

Heat a pan/wok, pour in some oil and fry the pork and marinade until cooked. Add in the cornstarch and water at the end. Stir until thick. That’s it.

Stir-fried broccoli with garlic and ginger
Ingredients:
1 head broccoli, rinsed
3 cloves garlic, sliced thinly
½ inch piece of ginger, peeled and sliced into matchsticks
salt

Let’s do it!
Chop up the broccoli: peel the thick skin off the stalk, and cut the bottom of the stalk off. Slice the stalk into thin rounds until you get to the florets. Take the florets apart with your hands (you will lose less of them this way) for any florets with thick stalks, slice only the stalk, then pull it apart with your hands.

Heat up a wok with some oil. When the oil is shimmery, add the garlic and ginger. Fry until golden. Move it around a lot, or it will burn. Add the broccoli and stir around, flipping them. Add ¼ cup of water and cover, letting it steam for maybe 10 minutes until dark. That’s it.

Pickled cucumber
Ingredients:
1 cucumber, seeded and sliced thinly
2 tbsp vinegar
1 tbsp water
1 tsp sugar
dash of salt

Let’s do it!
Mix all this stuff together and let marinate for at least an hour.

Lunch it up!
Put the pork and broccoli on a bed of brown rice in a microwavable container. If you like to keep things separate, then do so, but I would warn against heating stuff up in plastic containers. If you're a guy, you'll get boobs. If you're a girl, you'll get an extra uterus.

Keep the pickles separate, obviously. For some spiciness, I added some sriracha to the pork and broccoli at the last minute.

Fish Tacos

If you were able to read that title without giggling, then you are a better person than I am.

This is one of my favourite recipes ever because it's easy, it's tasty and I just plain love Mexican food. This recipe is based on this recipe on Epicurious. It's totally worth it to the full Epicurious recipe, but this one has less steps and less going on.

Working time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes


Ingredients:
2 white fish filets. (I used frozen basa from the Asian grocery store because it was $2.99 for two large filets! Enough for three meals!!)
1 cup roughly chopped cilantro
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 red onion, diced
1/2 green pepper, diced
3 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp chili powder
1 jalapeno, seeded and chopped (omit if you're not a spicy food fan, though jalapeno is really not that spicy. Maybe this is a good place to start?)
salt
tortillas

Note: Make sure you wash your hands thoroughly with soap after handling the jalapeno. I have a friend who didn't do this after making stuffed peppers and had to endure burning hands for hours. Luckily he didn't touch any other parts of his body.

Let's do it!
Mix the cilantro, two tbsp of oil and garlic in a large bowl. Place the fish in this mixture and let marinate for about 20 minutes. After 10 minutes, stir it around so it's evenly marinating.

Heat up a pan with some olive oil on medium/high. Stir in red onion, green pepper and jalapeno for about 10 minutes, until everything is soft and browned. Put this mixture aside.

Fry each filet in this pan for about 3 minutes each side. The fish is cooked when it flakes easily. When both the filets are cooked through, toss everything back in the pan, including the marinade and break up the fish with the spatula. Mix and sautee for another two minutes. Taste and season with salt if needed. That's it!

A delicious topping (found on the original recipe) is finely sliced red onion with diced jalapenos in red wine vinegar. Super delicious. I have it on mine above there. In my opinion, it totally makes the dish, but it's up to you if you want it.

Pack it up
Obviously, pack the fish separately from your tortillas. You can also chop up some lettuce and tomatoes if you're into that. I like to have some fresh lime to squeeze over this. Also, be prepared to eat this cold if your workplace is dead set against microwaving fish.