Ginger Pork & Noodle Stir-fry

Finally something that I have cooked recently (although I will still be reverting to old recipes to get through the backlog over the next few weeks)! As I mentioned, I’d recently dusted off my copy of Economy Gastronomy and picked out a few more recipes that I fancied trying - this being one of them.

Here, a cheap fatty cut of pork, belly, is twice cooked to create a fairly simple, very tasty stir fry. Poaching the pork first ensures that it is cooked through when it comes to stir-fry and means that you can then get crispy, tasty morsels of meat. You could I guess roast it first and get it very crispy that way but simmering makes it easier to cut up into cubes rather than having to hack away at crackling.

At first glance this may seem like a lot of ginger but trust me, it isn’t at all overpowering and really makes this, I think. In fact when I make this again at some point I will probably be tempted to use a bit more. The vegetables used, as ever, are up to you, but do make sure to make them fairly evenly sized when doing the prep. Stir-frying in batches, by the way, means that everything gets a chance to be properly stir-fried rather than steamed, which can happen if you overload your wok or large sauté pan with ingredients. Everything gets tossed in together at the end of course to combine with the sauce and therefore gets heated through again then. You’ll be working pretty quickly though so nothing will really get the chance to get particularly cold anyway.


Pork & Ginger Noodle Stir-fry
Serves 2-3

450-500g pork belly
1½ star anise
1 onion, roughly chopped
sesame oil
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 red chilli, finely sliced into rings
5cm piece of ginger, finely chopped
½ head of broccoli, cut into small florets
7-10 shiitake mushrooms, sliced
4 spring onions, sliced finely on the diagonal
20 mangetouts, halved lengthways on the diagonal
150g dry medium egg noodles, cooked in boiling water for 4 minutes, then cooled and drained
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sweet chilli sauce
1 tbsp chopped coriander

Put the pork belly into a large pot or pan and cover with water. Add the star anise and onion and simmer gently for 1½ hours. Turn off the heat and leave to cool in the water. Once cooled cut into 1cm dice.

Heat a wok or large sauté pan until it is just starting to smoke and pour in a little oil, swirling it around so the whole surface of the pan is covered. Throw in the pork and stir-fry, stirring constantly until it is all crispy and golden brown. Stir in the garlic, ginger, chilli and spring onions and continue to cook for about a minute. Tip out into a bowl and keep to one side.

Reheat and oil the pan, chuck in the broccoli, cook for a few minutes until heated through and slightly softened - you still want a bit of crunch. Ip out the broccoli and then reheat and oil the pan again. Repeating the process for the remaining vegetables in batches: mushrooms and mangetout.

When all is done, add all the vegetables, the pork, ginger etc back to the pan, along with the noodles. Carefully toss everything together with a little drizzle of sesame oil then drizzle in the soy sauce and sweet chilli.

Stir around again before adding the coriander and mixing that in. Serve immediately in bowls with chopsticks.