BETTER THAN TAKEOUT AND EASY – Pork Stir Fry [芹菜炒肉]

Hi everyone, welcome to souped up recipes. Today we are making celery stir fry pork. It is one of my mom’s favorite because she is addicted to celery. She makes this all the time. It is so easy and delicious. It is also one of those recipes that I started learning from my parents in the early time of my childhood. I can’t believe that I haven’t share it yet.

300 grams of pork
1/4 tsp of salt
1/4 tsp of baking soda
1 tbsp of soy sauce [Pearl River Bridge Natural Brewed Light Soy Sauce: https://amzn.to/2TdlvOB] 2 tsp of Chinese cooking wine [Shaohsing Rice Cooking Winehttps://amzn.to/2RW4KWG] 2 tsp of cornstarch
A bunch of Chinese celery (you can use regular celery)
Some chilies (You can use bell pepper if you don’t eat spicy food)
Five cloves of garlic
Some salt to taste (Add when stir-frying the celery)
Oil to stir fry

INSTRUCTION
– Slice 300 grams of pork thinly. I like to use pork shoulder, it has the perfect ratio of fat. You can also use pork loin if you prefer. It is not a big problem.

– Marinade it with 1/4 tsp of salt, 1/4 tsp of baking soda (Baking soda can break down the meat fiber and tenderize the pork), 1 tbsp of soy sauce, 2 tsp of Chinese cooking wine, 2 tsp of cornstarch. If you want to be fancy, you can add some chili flake or black pepper right here and mix it well. I am trying to keep this recipe as original as how my mom does so I am not going to add anything else. Let it sit for 20 minutes and we will prepare our vegetables.

– We normally use Chinese celery. It is much thinner and intenser than the big fatty celery. I couldn’t find it today so I will just use the regular one. Cut it into thin strips so it looks like Chinese celery. Also, it helps to infuse the flavor.

– You will also need some chilies. All I can get from the supermarket is jalapeno which works for me. Slice them thinly. You can keep the seed or discard the seed. Doesn’t matter. If you don’t like spicy food, you can use bell pepper too. I used one red and one green so the dish will look nicer.

– Roughly crush few cloves of garlic. Peel it. Don’t need to dice it or else you will burn the garlic because we gonna use high heat to stir fry.

– You might want to put all the ingredients in one bowl so you can just dump it in when you need it.

– Heat up your wok to super hot. When you see there is smoke coming out of the wok, that is the time to add oil. Toss the oil around so it covers the bottom. I am using a cast iron wok and it needs a certain amount of oil to stir-fry. If you are using a non-stick wok, you can use as little oil as you prefer.

– Add in your pork and quickly stir it. High heat and fast action are the keys to a perfect Chinese stir-fry. There will be a lot of smoke coming out. Don’t panic and you might want to turn off your smoke alarm. This is going to take about 2 minutes because everything needs to be done fast. When you turn off the heat, make sure you remove the wok off the stove or else the rest of the heat will burn the meat. Take it out and set it aside.

– Next, we are going to stir fry the celery. Add a little more oil to the same wok. Again, if you don’t like it to be oily, you can use less oil as you prefer. Dump in all the ingredients (celery, chilies, garlic). I like the celery to be crunchy so I just stir it for only 3 minutes. If you like soft texture, you can cook it longer. Honestly, you can eat celery raw so it really depends on how you like it. Once you think it is good, add some salt and mix it together. That’s it. My parents never use MSG or any fancy seasoning. All they did just to control the heat and maximize the flavor out of the ingredient itself.

– Transfer the pork back to the wok. Stir everything together. That’s it. You are done. It is so simple.

Serve it with rice and enjoy! If you have any questions about the recipes, just post a comment, will help you out as soon as possible!

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