Heirloom tomato with pork and doubanjan

 My wife's been growing heirloom tomato this summer and a couple of them were ripe. Last night I was watching liziqi and got a craving for hand pulled noodles. Tonight, I made stir-fry hand pulled noodles with heirloom tomato and doubanjan pork.

 

Ingredients

1/2 cup diced heirloom tomato

1/2 lb ground pork

2 Tsp doubanjan

2 Tb soy sauce

1 Tb shaoxing rice wine

1 Tsp salt

2 cloves garlic

4 stalks scallion

4-5 servings of hand pulled noodles

1 Tb corn starch

4 Tb water

1/2 Tsp chili powder or gochugaru korean chili powder

Get the wok or frying pan ripping hot, add 2 Tb cooking oil and 2 Tsp doubanjan. Fry it for 15 seconds, and add the garlic. When the garlic starts to brown, add the ground pork and stir fry for 1-2 minutes. Add 1 Tb soy sauce, 1 Tsp salt, chili powder and rice wine. Stir fry until the pork is cooked. Add the chopped scallion and tomato. Turn the heat down to medium and let it cook for 2-3 minutes. In the mean time, combine the corn starch and water.

Add the hand-pulled noodles and stir fry for 3-4 minutes. Add 1 Tb soy sauce, the corn starch mixture and cook until the sauce thickens. 

The flavor was inspired by two videos. The first is hand pulled video by liziqi

The second video is life of tomato

My goal for tonight's dish was to high light the flavor of the heirloom tomato and avoid over powering it. I love spicy food and usually get a little heavy handed with lots of spice. Normally, I use an entire bulb of garlic for dinner and many of my dishes have 8-12 spices.

For this dish, I only used two garlic cloves and scallions to highlight the freshness of the tomato. For the pork, I would normally add 1-2 Tb of doubanjan with sichuan peppercorn, white peppercorn and gochugaru. From experience, I know that many spices would over power the tomato. Reducing the doubanjan to 2 Tsp and only adding a sprinkle of gochugaru helped round out the flavor with a little bit of heat. The other ingredients supported the fresh tomato as if they were lifting it up to the sky.

Taiwanese style Daikon Cake 蘿蔔糕

Last december I watched Angel Wong's daikon cake video and decided to make some. Here is my recipe inspired by angel.

My recipe is a little different. Taiwanese sausage is a bit too oily for my taste, so I substitute it with a small amount of pork belly or bacon.

4" piece of pork belly or 5 strips of uncured bacon

3 Tb dried shrimp

2 Tb fried shallots

1/4 cup chopped shitake mushrooms

1 clove garlic minced

1/2" ginger minced

1 Tsp chinese white pepper powder

1 Tsp salt

1 Tsp sugar

1 bag of rice flour

4 cups water

2 lbs Daikon turnip

1 Tb soy sauce

1 Tb sesame oil

1/2 Tsp five spice

1 fresh shallot

2 hour before you start, soak 3Tb dried shrimp in water. If you use dried shitake, soak them in water too.

In a large mixing bowl combine rice flour, salt, white pepper and sugar. Stir to mix the ingredients and add 2 cups of cold water. Follow Angel's video for this step and prep the batter before you start the other steps.

Peel and grate the daikon. Cook the daikon with 2 cups of water in a pot for 15-20 minutes. While the daikon is cooking, you can start on the meet mixture.

Mince the ginger and garlic. Julienne the pork belly or bacon. Chop the dried shrimp and shitake mushroom. Get a wok or frying pat hot and fry the garlic and ginger for 15-20 seconds until fragrant. Add the pork and cook for 2-3 minutes or until the fat starts to render out. Add the chopped shallots, five spice and shitake mushrooms. Cook for 2-3 minutes until the mushrooms are cooked and turn off the heat.

When the daikon is cooked, add the meat, fried shaoots and mix thoroughly before adding the rice batter. Next add the rice batter following Angel's directions. Steam for 30-35minutes and let it cool. When you're ready to eat, cut slice and fry them in a pan.