Marla's Place: SUPER simple Ginger Pork (Shoga Yaki)

Okay, so THIS is the easiest recipe in the world! 3 ingredients really, although tonight I added one more (a bed of cabbage for some veggies). And you've never tasted anything yummier!!!

This serves my little family of 4 usually without any leftovers (which means I have no idea what we are going to eat for lunch tomorrow!!!). Prep time is about 20 minutes, cooking time about 10!

You will need...

1 lbs (500 grams) of thinly sliced pork loin (もも切り落とし)

about 1/3 cup ginger

1/8 ~ 1/4 cup soy sauce

4-6 cabbage leaves

pull 4-6 cabbage leaves from the head of cabbage, wash and shake dry

cut the spine (hard white area) from the middle of each leaf and set aside for a moment...

layer about four pieces of the cabbage together

roll them up like this

and thinly slice

then thinly slice the spine that you removed earlier if you are like me and you LOVE the crunchy part the best!

Lay this out in a large serving plate and set aside

Now we are going to julienne the ginger (this just means cut it into thin strips)

Just typing that word julienne is painful for me at the moment. You see I have for the last 5 days been doing Jillian Michael's 30 day shred. I think the most painful day was day 3 but today I am still feeling it. And the word julienne is just too close to the name Jillian, not to mention talking about shredding.... OUCH!

THAT was random. Okay, back to the ginger...

this is how I julienne. Like I do with an onion if you saw my other tutorial, I leave part of the vegetable in tact, only slices most of the way through like this...

Then lay portions of the ginger down where you can slice across the slices you just made, like this...

Tada! Just like magic you have julienned ginger!

At the end, go ahead and finely chop a small portion (about a Tbsp or so) to use at the beginning of the frying process.

Now you should have a small collection like this... (bed of cabbage, a tiny bit of finely chopped ginger, 1/3 cup julienned ginger, 1/4 cup soy sauce, 500 grams of pork)

In a large skillet or wok, add about a Tbsp of cooking oil, and dump in the small portion of finely chopped ginger that we prepared there at the end. Slowly warm the ginger in the oil on a low flame until it starts to sizzle in the oil.

Crank the flame to high and pour in the meat

Stir fry this using your handy dandy cooking chopsticks you've had for 12 years now, that were already in the house you were renting when you married, so who knows how old they REALLY are, until the meat is almost done (no more pink can be seen).

that one is still too pink.

Let's keep going!

Ahhhh! There we are. See there remains maybe one or two pieces of meat still slightly pink, so now hurry up and dump in your julienned ginger!

That word julienned is growing on me now. I am forgetting the pain of the 30 day shred. Now it is starting to sound so sophisticated!

OKAY, focus here folks, we don't have time for random musings. In about a minute that ginger is going to already be getting tender and each little strip will not be stiff, but starting to get all bendy. oh man, I went from sophisticated julienning to BENDY! *sigh* Anywhoooo, dump in that soy sauce (see the note just below this picture before you dump it ALL in).

I would suggest at this point, pouring about half of your 1/4 cup of soy sauce in, getting it stirred around and warmed up, and then taking a taste to see how it's going. There are different kinds of soy sauce and some are more bold than others. Start with a little and add more if you think it needs more flavor. I used a fairly smooth, mellow soy sauce so I used the entire 1/4 cup.

Stir it around, get the soy sauce mixed in well and all bubbly and then turn off your flame.

I finish all the rest of my dinner prep at this point and then reheat the pan of Ginger Pork and pour it over the bed of cabbage RIGHT before serving it, so that we don't get wilted mushy cabbage. That hot pork and the YUMMY sauce that comes with it, will make like a really awesome salad dressing for the crunchy cabbage, if eaten right away!