Five Spice Pork with an Asian Green Bean Salad

23/10/2016

Here is another salad that my family love.

This one has a sesame oil flavour to me, and usually I'm not a fan of sesame oil, as it can be strong, but I just love it here. Same goes with Chinese five spice, sometimes I find it overpowering, yet here, it is great.

This is so simple to make, yet so flavoursome. The whole salad disappears very quickly.

I do all the prep work for the salad. When that is done, my husband barbecues the pork. While the pork is resting I dress the salad, then all that needs to be done is slicing the pork and adding it to the salad.

Now if you don't want to barbecue the pork, you can make this on the stove top and in the oven. Preheat your oven to 220C/200C fan forced. Place a tablespoon of sunflower oil in a frying pan over high heat, add the pork and sear for about 3 minutes per side. Place the pork on a baking paper lined oven tray and bake for about 18-20 minutes, depending on the thickness of the pork. Rest for at least 5-10 minutes.

Now if you are cooking for less, halve the recipe. If green beans are crazy expensive, use frozen green beans.

This would be great for a picnic also, everything can be made the day before, just transfer to the picnic separately and assemble at the picnic. Combine the salad in one bowl, the dressing in a screw top jar, the sliced pork in a small container. When needed mix it all together, serve on plates or in wraps.

This is a simple yet delicious salad that we love, hope you do to.

Recipe

Recipe adapted from www.taste.com.au

Serves 6-8

1/4 cup Chinese rice wine or Dry Sherry
1/4 cup soy sauce
2cm piece ginger, finely grated
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 long hot red chilli or 2 small red birds eye chilli
2 teaspoons Chinese five spice
100g grated palm sugar, grated or brown sugar
2 x 500g pork fillet

Asian Green Bean Salad:
1kg green beans, trimmed
3-4 baby cos lettuce, washed
40g sesame seeds, toasted

4 Asian eschalots, peeled, thinly sliced (I use normal eschalots, easier to find)
1 tablespoons rice bran oil

Salad Dressing:
4-5cm piece ginger, finely grated
4 tablespoons soy sauce
4 tablespoons sesame oil
4 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons caster sugar
2 teaspoon dried chilli flakes

Sliced Lebanese cucumber and flat bread, to serve

First the marinade: To a small food processor add the ginger, garlic, chillies, five spice and sugar. Blitz until it is chopped well. Add the rice wine and soy sauce, blitz briefly to combine. Place the pork in an airtight container or a zip loock bag, pour over the marinade, marinate for at least one hour or for up to one day. I usually marinate it for 2 hours. Place in the refrigerator, turn the meat over every now and then. Remember to take the meat out of the refrigerator an hour before cooking, so the meat isn't too cold when I put it on the barbecue.

For the salad: Cook the beans in boiling water for 3 minutes. Drain, allow to cool in colander.

Shred the cos lettuce into 2cm wide strips, wash well, drain away the water. Place in a large mixing bowl.

Add the rice bran oil to a small frying pan, over medium heat. Add the eschalots and sauté until golden in colour. Remove from heat, allow to cool in a small bowl.

Wipe away the oil from your frying pan, add the sesame seeds. Constantly stirring, over a medium heat, toast the sesame seeds until they begin to colour.

To the salad leaves, add the cooled green beans, eschalots and sesame seeds.

For the Dressing: Combine the ginger, soy sauce, sesame oil, rice vinegar, sugar and chilli in a screw top jar.

Now the pork (my husband takes great pride in this). Preheat the BBQ to high. Remove the pork from the marinade, reserve the marinade. Brush the pork with the remaining oil, then cook uncovered for 4 minutes on each side or until cooked through, brush some extra marinade over the pork every now and then. We cooked the thinner fillet for 12 minutes in total, the thicker fillet for 16 minutes, as it was quite thick, as a guide. We also covered the BBQ for the final 4 minutes. Remove from the heat, cover with foil and rest for 5 minutes.