Thai green curry with pork and green beans over rice vermicelli

I made this curry a week or two ago and haven't had a chance to post it, but I wanted to make a point to, if only to remind myself that:

1) Yes, there is such a thing as "too much fish sauce". I kind of went from "hmm, kind of bland" to "flavour overload" fairly quickly.

2) If you have enough sauce in the pan, you can rehydrate rice noodles in it and they will taste AMAZING.

This is made from two pork chops I deboned, frozen green and yellow string beans, store-bought green curry paste, coconut milk, fish sauce and Vietnamese rice vermacelli noodles. I would definitely make it again but next time, I would maybe add more paste, not more fish sauce....

Supper all to myself, part deux.

So, the significant other had to work another evening shift, so I had the kitchen (and couch) to myself. After my disappointing experience with mussels, I couldn't decide whether I wanted more seafood, or something totally different. I ended up getting a bag of frozen shrimp, and a bottle of sundried-tomato alfredo sauce, as well as a carton of mini portobello mushrooms. To this I added, obviously, some fettuccine I had at home, as well as some frozen peas, and at the end I added some grated asiago and a chiffonade of basil, to celebrate the planting of my little mini herb garden (cilantro, oregano, flat-leaf parsley and basil). The sauce went AMAZINGLY well with the basil and the last of my retsina, which made me pretty happy!

Tomorrow: I'm cooking some of my buy-one-get-one-free pork sirloin chops. Question is, what to do with it? Some sort of curry? Maybe just fry it with some olive oil and drizzle lemon on it? There are about a million things I could do with it...

Goan pork from the Patak's website

Originally I was going to make the saucy slow-cooker version of this, but that fell through when I discovered that I had bought the vindaloo paste, and not the cooking sauce. Then I got lazy and let my boyfriend cook it for me while I went to Greek class.


Goan Spiced Pork
(Maas Vindaloo)
Serves 4
Preparation Time 15 mins
Cooking Time 45 mins
Ingredients
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 medim onion, sliced
4 garlic cloves, sliced
2 green chillies, deseeded and sliced into strips
1 red pepper, deseeded and sliced into strips
1 green pepper, deseeded and sliced into strips
2 tbsp Patak's Vindaloo Curry Paste
450g pork fillet, trimmed and cut into thin strips

Cooking Instructions
Heat the oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat. Fry the onion for 2 minutes. Add the garlic and green chillies along with the peppers and continue to cook for a further 2 minutes. Stir in the Patak's Vindaloo Curry Paste and cook for a further minute.
Add the pork and cook for a another 5 minutes. Mix in 2 tablespoons water, then reduce the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes, or until the pork is tender and cooked through. Add a little extra water if too thick, or reduce slightly if too thin.
Serve the spiced pork with steamed basmati rice and Patak's Brinjal Aubergine Pickle.

The result was sooooo dry, and kind of bland. It was aromatic, and definitely had some heat to it, but lacked flavour, and without any sauce to speak of, the basmati rice kind of overwhelmed the pork and peppers. If I cooked it myself, I would have added more paste, or more water/oil, or chopped tomatoes/tomato paste to make it saucier. Something. I have to admit, the pork loin (which I got at Victory, the best cheap butcher/market in town) was dark and flavourful, and was a nice change from the chicken curries I usually cook.