I find it quite funny that a few colleagues at work are always so interested in what I bring to lunch. They can be fascinated by basic dishes like fried rice, 梅菜蒸豬肉 (steamed pork mince with dry pickled Chinese vegetables) 、蒸水蛋 (steamed egg)、豆腐煮魚 (tofu with fish) etc. And I can never find the most perfect and accurate way to explain to people exactly what ingredients such as 豆豉 (Chinese fermented black beans) or 腐乳 (fermented bean curd) are. I guess in Hong Kong, we are pretty lucky to be exposed to cuisines from so many different countries and we have become accustomed to a wide variety of cooking and flavours.
I remember when I first came to Australia, a friend from boarding school told me that she would never eat fish that had any skin or bones attached to it. That was almost incomprehensible to me as we would have steamed whole fish at home at least two to three times a week and it is a dish that I really enjoy (not to mention how much I love those fish eye balls!) And think of all those delicious sashimi that she is missing out just because she's scared of raw meat!
Anyway I cooked this dish a few nights ago and brought the leftover to work for lunch the next day. A colleague couldn't help ask me what I was having because she reckoned it smelled really good. I got kinda embarrassed because, after all, there isn't anything impressive about pork chop in a pineapple sauce right? But I guess this is part of what they call cultural differences. And maybe I can start spreading the message that home-cooked Chinese meals are nothing like the greasy Chinese takeaway that you get from next door!
Pork chop with pineapple and capsicum
2 slices of pork chops
1/2 onion, sliced
1/2 red capsicum
1/2 yellow capsicum
1/2 green capsicum
2 cloves of garlic, crushed and roughly chopped
1 can of pineapple pieces
Sauce: pineapple juice from the can, 1 tbsp ketchup, 1 tbsp sugar (adjust to taste), 1 tsp worcestershire sauce
1) Place pork chops between 2 layers of cling wrap and flatten with a meat mallet or a rolling pin to half of its original thickness. Slice them to 1cm-thick pieces and marinate with sugar, soy sauce, ground pepper, sesame oil and corn starch.
2) Heat oil in pan. Cook pork chop pieces until cooked through. Remove from pan and set aside.
3) In the same pan, add sliced onion and cook until transparent. Add garlic and capsicums and cook until capsicums start to soften. Stir in pineapples, pork chops and the sauce into the pan and bring it to boil. Then reduce the heat and allow to simmer for about 5 minutes.
4) Thicken the sauce by adding a mixture of 1 tbsp water and 1 tbsp of corn starch. Serve with rice.
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