Ok, yes, I got extremely lazy this time and chose the easy way out.  Pork meat already marinaded… as in.. the marinade sits in the pack with the raw pork… roll your eyes all you want but it looked like heaven to me. I haven’t done this in at least 10 years. I remember back in my microwave-dinner days discovering  Trader Joe’s. The dark ages, sure… but they had this carne asada deal that was: a . m .  a . z . i . n. g… in my memories it is amazing, like when you explain to a younger person how awesome that original tv show V was…… watch it now. Ok.. moving on. 

Overtime I got more a more interested in controlling more aspects of cooking including marinades and if you’ve been keeping up with this blog, that “interest” went well beyond marinades. But I couldn’t resist the convenience of grabbing a pack of pork with an extra ton of infused flavour and sear it and mix it with ramen noodles and a ton of chalula sauce. That right there pretty accurately describes what went down here.  I mean, why bother posting a recipe for stuff like this. Seriously all it takes is 3 ingredients, one pot and welcome to the jungle. Going wrong ain’t an option. 

Searing thinly sliced pork is not a problem, usually, meat sold at japanese markets is well marbled and ready for action…. Ah!, forgot to mention, I got my ingredients at my local japanese market just a bloc away, Marukai on pico:  a . m .  a . z . i . n. g.

Searing that pork. 

So anyways, just sear the pork in a hot skillet. Pat it dry with some paper towels before you do. The bottom of the pan should be around 450F if using vegetable oil. Any hotter and I’d say, well, the oil will burn, your house will fill with smoke, smoke detectors will go off, and what’s more horrifying… the second you place the meat on that pan, a microscopic cloud of atomized grease will rise and coat your cabinets, walls, ceilings, and everything on its way.

Overtime, if you are an obsessive searing fiend in a poorly ventilated kitchen like some people I know, your whole house will be coated in polymerized grease, it’s like sticky silicon.. the worst kind, really hard to clean. Sure, maybe you have a range hood, or a microwave … that thingy that pretends to extract the fumes underneath it. Nothing will get in the way of that grease death cloud. If you want to go hotter than 450F-485F LEAVE the house. That’s what outdoor grills are for.  I find that staying just under 485F is hot enough to give you a pretty awesome sear. 

Those noodles. 

For the noodles. You know it! I’m gonna keep doing it. I reconstituted the noodles in water before I even started prepping the rest of the stuff. That cuts cooking time… not that I’ve measured it… yet, but it’s significant. If you wanna get fancier, you can prepare a 2% salinity solution and use that so the noodles are properly seasoned as they rehydrate. I didn’t because like I said.. I was feeling lazy. Hey! don’t judge. I added salt to the boiling water when I cooked them so they were traditionally seasoned…. but… maybe not salty enough, which I think was ok since the ginger pork was already a bit too salty.

On store bought marinaded stuff. 

That’s the issue with buying stuff pre-made for you. The seasoning will be what whoever put that thing together wanted it to be and usually on the too-salty side. Sure, it’s not the end of the world but takes away control (it kinda is the end of the world if you suffer from high blood pressure like myself). Hmm… not a good thing..if you like control. But to be honest, I have never made ramen noodles from scratch for example, so I use whatever somebody else decided they should taste like. And not just noodles. I buy lots of stuff I have zero control over.  Pretty much any ingredient I use now that I think of it. Yes, including water.  I would probably go easier on the chlorine. 

Ok… so before I go completely mad, I’ll stop and say… yep, once the noodles are cooked, mix them with the pork and add a ton of chalula. That’s basically it like I said in paragraph one. Three ingredients. 4 if you count ginger, 5 if you count salt, 6… sure, there were some scallions in the mix, 7, the vegetable oil, 8… salt. So there.. 8 ingredients. Should we break down the ingredients that go into making chalula sauce too? maybe that should be our next post. Homemade chalula sauce. I’ve read the ingredient’s list. It’s super simple….I gotta get some sleep.  

If you want to discuss obsessive compulsive disorders in the kitchen, know more about how to deal with kitchen control freaks and polymerized death clouds drop me a line. I love them subjects and I know you do too. See yah! 

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