What do you do with leftovers?
My biggest nemesis in the kitchen are certain leftovers. When it comes to chicken and/or sausage the solution is always easy- gumbo, jambalaya or any other Cajun dish. If I have some leftover pork and I’m making one of the above dishes, the pork gets thrown in; especially with jambalaya. Pork adds a level of flavor to jambalaya that always lends itself perfectly.
My issue comes in when I have leftover pork, but nothing else to use it in, and nothing else planned to have leftovers of. This evening I had leftover pork loin, and I don’t have anything planned for the week that will give me another tool. So what do I do? This is always a dilemma for me. I started searching the pantry, freezer and fridge. I searched everywhere and found a bag of frozen stir fry vegetables that I didn’t know I had, some stir fry noodles… and then a bottle of sirache, soy, hoisin, and chicken stock was found. The last pieces of the puzzle for stir fry was fresh ginger, garlic, corn starch and brown sugar. Low and behold I had them.
So now I have all the pieces for a good stir fry sauce, some good stir fry noodles and yes some frozen vegetable. Normally I don’t like cooking with frozen vegetable as a central part of dish, but we are turning leftover pork loin into a good dinner, so why not just add a little fresh onion and pepper to round out the flavor.
I have to toot my own horn here and say that this experiment came out great. I was yearning for some Chinese food and this fixed my craving just fine.
For the sauce I did a half cup of brown sugar, half cup of chicken stock, half cup of soy, a tablespoon of hoisin, 2 garlic toes minced, a tablespoon of sesame seed oil, a tablespoon of sirache and a teaspoon of crushed red pepper.
For the noodles, you just have to add the stir fry noodle to a pot of boiling esteems turn off the heat and let them soak for 2 minutes to separate, drain them and then add some sesame seed oil to prevent them from sticking.
First thing I did was stir fry the frozen vegetable in a hot skillet, once they start to get warm, add the fresh vegetable so that they all cook together.
Move the vegetable to the sides creating a hole in the middle then add in the sliced pork loin, or chicken or whatever meat you are using.
Once the meat is cooked, fold the vegetable and meat together and pull it to the side to create another hole. Then add the noodles back the hole and poor the sauce over them. Gently fold everything together and keep working it gently until the sauce comes to boil. When it does, add in a slurry of 1 tablespoon corn starch with 2 tablespoons water. Keep stirring and folding until it all thickens up and comes together.
When you’re done, serve it in a bow and enjoy an inexpensive way, to create something new from leftovers.
- this dish works equally good with both chicken and beef as well.
