Sluttishly Savoury: Quick Chinese Pork with Sautéed Cucumber

This recipe was born out of frustration. What do you do with mince when you can't face shaping meatballs, stirring a Bolognese, or waiting for the oven to heat up? Chinese pork is the answer!

Fried with a range of delicious Chinesey (err, yes it's a technical term) store cupboard ingredients, the pork mince is transformed into a salty, sweet, spicy, crunchy mass of deliciousness. Cucumber is often sidelined to salad only but it's SO good fried. It breaks down a little in the heat so the texture becomes more gherkin-like. It's nice because it doesn't overpower. Same goes for radishes.

This is really good over brown rice or with noodles, or with pancakes. Now I know that yesterday was Pancake Day but in my house we celebrate for the entire week, so I served my pork with spring onion pancakes, and amen, it was a good decision. Or equally tasty would be Caleigh's amazing gluten free chive pancakes.

Chinese Pork with Sautéed Cucumber (serves 2 as a main)

You'll need:

• 300g lean pork mince
• 1 clove of garlic, peeled and minced
• 1 thumb sized piece of root ginger, peeled and grated
• 3 tbsp of dark soy sauce
• 2 tbsp of brown sugar
• 2 tsp Chinese 5-Spice
• half a cucumber, deseeded and diced
• 1 tbsp veg/sunflower oil
• 2 tbsp toasted sesame oil
• 1 red chilli, frozen (optional)

For the spring onion pancakes: 

• 110g plain flour
• a pinch of salt
• 2 eggs
• 200ml milk mixed with 75ml water
• 2 spring onions, finely sliced/shredded

Make it!

• Heat a frying pan, add a little sunflower/veg. oil and add the ginger. Fry for a few minutes.
• Add the pork mince and cook for a further 5 minutes until starting to colour.
• Add the garlic, a big pinch of salt, the sugar and the Chinese 5-spice. Cook for a further 10 minutes on a fairly low heat. The meat will start to darken and caramelise with the sugar, you want to pork to become almost crunchy.  
• In the meantime, heat another pan and add the cucumber, dry. This just needs to cook fairly quickly for a few minutes or until it starts to colour.
• Add the cucumber to the pork and cook for a final minute, finally adding the sesame oil and soy sauce for flavour. Now it's ready to be eaten. I grated frozen chilli over mine. Leftover chillis freeze in no time at all and taste amazing grated over most things. 
•  If you want to join me in celebrating pancake 'week' then see below.

For the pancakes (this is a standard pancake batter)

• Sift the flour and salt together in a mixing bowl. 
• Make a well in the centre and crack in the eggs. 
• Whisk the eggs and slowly incorporate the flour until smooth.
• Whisk in the milk and water in slowly, whisking out any lumps. 
• When ready to cook, heat a fairly small non-stick pan with a little oil and get it really nice and hot.
• Ladle out a spoonful of batter, then add a few spring onions before flipping  to cook the other side.