Weeknight Cooking

Chinese-American Pork Roast

by:
November 11, 2013

Jenny is in perpetual search for easy, weeknight recipes to attempt to feed her family. When they balk, she just eats more.

Today: A weeknight twist on braised pork -- and one that's perfect for lunch all week. 

pork roast from food52

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There are few things my children love to eat for lunch more than ramen noodles. This choice appeals to me on some levels -- it’s a warm, hearty choice and very easy to prepare in the morning -- but I do fret over the lack of protein in a bowl of salt-laden noodles. 

(They feel more saddened by a lack of chocolate bar, but this is about my needs.)

Inspired by a recent trip to Tokyo, I decided to make a lovely pork loin roast that I could chop into yummy bits for the bottom of the thermos. So I turned to Chinese-American Pork Roast and gave it a weeknight twist that is perfect for sack lunches. 

I would like to stop here and say that I have tried many recipes written by monkeymom and feel confident that if you make this recipe just as written, it will be delicious in that life-defining way that slow-cooked meat often is. 

But I substituted the pork shoulder with a 1 1/2-pound loin and cooked it up in a Dutch oven for roughly 30 minutes with the same proportions of sauce, poured over at the end. I skipped the whole fridge part. 

Lunch for a week in under an hour. ?????!

Chinese-American Pork Roast by monkeymom

Serves 8

1/4 cup vegetable oil
4 ginger slices
3 tablespoons brown sugar
4 1/2 pounds pork shoulder (boneless, trimmed of skin and fat)
1 onion, sliced thinly
1 shallot, sliced thinly
2 green onions
4 garlic cloves, chopped
6 to 8 shiitake mushrooms (other types can be substituted)
1/4 cup sweet rice wine (shao-xing wine, dry sherry or sake can be substituted)
1 cup soy sauce

See the full recipe (and save and print it) here.

Photo by James Ransom

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A New Way to Dinner, co-authored by Food52's founders Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs, is an indispensable playbook for stress-free meal-planning (hint: cook foundational dishes on the weekend and mix and match ‘em through the week).

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Jestei

Written by: Jestei

The ratio of people to cake is too big.

2 Comments

monkeymom November 12, 2013
Hi Jenny! Glad that you adapted this...I will also try it for adding to ramen! It is getting chilly and a big bowl of ramen sounds awesome.
 
Shalini November 11, 2013
This looks really good. How long in total did you cook the pork loin for?