Onion pork chops with ginger-juice gai lan
Tenderised pork chops pan-fried golden and braised with sliced onion in a rich, rice-friendly sauce, served with blanched gai lan dressed in ginger juice.
- 45 min
- Serves 2
- Pan-fry
- Easy
Why it suits you: Yang-deficient people feel the cold and often have chilly hands and feet, and Major Heat's air conditioning and cold drinks easily chill the spleen and stomach. Onion is pungent and warm, freeing yang and whetting the appetite, while pan-fried, braised pork chops nourish. Ginger juice tempers the coolness of gai lan, leaving your stomach comfortably warm.
Method
Prep 25 min · Cook 20 min- 1Pound both sides of the chops with the back of a cleaver, snip through the sinew at the edges and marinate with the light soy, a little sugar and the cornflour for 20 minutes.
- 2Heat half the oil and fry the chops over a medium heat for 3 minutes on each side until golden, then lift out.
- 3Add the remaining oil and fry the onion until soft and lightly caramelised. Add the dark soy, Worcestershire sauce, remaining sugar and water and bring to the boil. Return the chops, cover and simmer for 8 minutes until the sauce thickens.
- 4Peel the tough skin from the gai lan stems and cut into lengths. Blanch in boiling water with a little salt and oil for 2 minutes, drain and drizzle with the ginger juice.
Cautions
- Worcestershire and dark soy are already salty, so no extra salt is needed; with acid reflux, cook the onion right through.
Chef's tips
- Snipping the sinew round the edge stops the chops curling as they fry; caramelising the onion lightly gives the sauce its sweetness.
The TCM view
Onion is pungent and warm, warming the middle, freeing yang, moving qi and supporting the stomach. Pork is sweet, salty and neutral, nourishing the kidneys and blood and moistening dryness. Gai lan is sweet, pungent and cool, draining water and resolving phlegm; fresh ginger is pungent and slightly warm, warming the middle and dispersing cold, and offsets the gai lan's coolness. Warming without drying, it supports spleen yang in summer.
