Pork chops Oriental style, pickled salad
Originally uploaded by Manne.
Picked this fantastic dish up on ITV. Oriental pork chops with pickled salad and rice. I knew it would be good, but it actually exceeded my expectations. The salad in particular is amazing.
Changed the salad a bit, since I unsurprisingly couldn't find any "Chinese leaf" (what on Earth is "Chinese leaf"...) at my local Tescos in Brixton. It reminds me a lot about a really hot condiment I usually serve with Asian food where you pickle red chillis and cucumbers in lemon juice with some sugar, but made this way it can actually be served as a stand alone salad. Another upside is that it isn't so hot it blisters your tongue, like the lemon juice pickled stuff gets if you leave it to marinate too long...
PICKLED CARROT AND CUCUMBER SALAD
Ingredients
* 2 carrots, sliced
* 1 cucumber, sliced
* 1 red romano pepper, julienned
* 1 red chili, chopped finely
* 2 tbsp mirin
* 2 tbsp light soy sauce
* 1 tbsp sugar
* 1 bag of baby spinach, rocket, water cress
Method
Remove the seeds from the chili and chop it very finely. Mix in small bowl with mirin, soy sauce and sugar to make a dressing.
Peel the cucumber and then use the peeler to slice it in fine strips, working your way in a circling fashion towards the core. When you sort of hold just a thin tube of cucumber with the watery centre in the middle cut it in thin slices with a knife. Sounds weird, but it looks really nice. Put strips and slices in a large bowl.
Use the peeler to cut the carrots in fine strips as well, as with the cucumber. Since the carrot is stiffer though, cut the strips in half with a knife and then add them to the large bowl.
Remove the seeds from the bell pepper, quarter it and cut julienne strips from the quarters, add to the large bowl.
Pour the dressing over the strips, mix together, put some cling film over the bowl and leave to let pickle for 15 to 20 minutes.
Just before you serve, mix in the bag of water cress, rocket and baby spinach (yes, remove the bag first...) and give it a good stir making sure the dressing covers everything.
Serve with for example the pork chops linked above, or some other Oriental type dish you like. Divine.
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