Oct 18-19 Pork in Black Bean Sauce

Oct 18     $10 pizza night at Il Fornello
Oct 19     Pork in Black Bean Sauce


I was craving beef with black bean sauce but I had a pork tenderloin in the fridge and, basically, anything is better in black bean sauce so pork worked for me! I used to joke that I'd even eat dog poop if it was in black bean sauce, so you know that I am very fond of the stuff.
I sort of cheated and used black bean garlic sauce like this and did not make my own from scratch using fermented black beans but I only had half an hour to whip some dinner together and this stuff tastes good, so sue me. Cauliflower is not a vegetable you would ever see a lot of in a chinese stir fry but we love it so it goes into most things it doesn't belong in.
This is a really simple dish and you can have the whole thing ready, from start to finish in half an hour. Sometimes, back in the days when I could make the same thing as often as I liked, I would cut up the meat and the vegetables in the morning and put everything in the fridge and then I could get the stir fry done in the time it took to cook the rice at dinner time. These kinds of quick dishes are perfect meals for busy week nights and there is really no end to the meat/veggie combos you can use - it's great with tofu and seafood too, although the black bean sauce is a bit overpowering for shrimp or other delicately flavoured proteins. Protein. I have clearly been watching way too much Top Chef.

Pork with Black Bean Sauce
Serves 4

1 pork tenderloin, sliced as thin as possible
1 tbls soy sauce
1-2 tbls of vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbls grated ginger
1/2 red onion cut in wedges
1 yellow pepper, chopped
1 orange pepper, chopped
1 stalk celery, sliced thinly
2 handful of green beans (I steam them with the cauliflower for 5 minutes first)
1 handful of cauliflower florets, halved if large (pre steamed with the green beans)
3 tbls black bean with garlic sauce
1/4 cup chicken stock
1/4 cup water
1 tsp cornstarch

toss the sliced pork with the tbls of soy sauce and set aside.
Steam the green beans and cauliflower for five minutes, run under cold water and set aside in a strainer.

Heat 1 tbls of oil in a wok or large sauté pan over med-high heat. Saute the onion for a couple of minutes and then add the garlic and ginger and sauté for another 30 seconds or so until really fragrant. Now add the pork and stir fry the meat until all the pink is gone. Remove all of that to a big bowl and set aside.

Pour in the second tbls of vegetable oil and add the celery and stir fry for a minute. Now add the peppers and stir fry for another minute or two, until you start to see little brown bits on the skin of the peppers. Next comes the green beans and cauliflower and after another minute, add the pork/onion mixture back in  along with any juices that have collected in the bowl. Stir fry for another minute before you add the black bean sauce. Mix that in really well and then add the chicken stock. Whisk the cornstarch into the water and add that. Mix it all up really well, let the sauce come to a simmer and let that cook for one more minute, two tops.
Serve with rice.