ORIENTAL PORK RASHERS

Walking through the meat section of my supermarket recently, I noticed that there are always particular items of food that are placed on the top shelves. Things like liver, lamb breast and fatty cuts of pork tend to be out of sight of the shoppers’ direct view. Thought I should take note of the less obvious cuts of meat as having to food budget more often these days due to financial stresses at work 😦 Boo hoo about work but hurrah if I can select cheaper cuts of meat and successfully produce a tasty dish of food!

Found a pack of pork streaky rashers and thought “what the heck are these long thick cut strips of meat?” Not having a clue about which part of the pig they came from, thought I’d just toss them in my shopping basket and figure it out later. Plus I thought they looked quite good value for money (£4.79/kg), however at the time I just didn’t know what to do with them!

Decided to rummage around in my food cupboard looking for everyday store cupboard ingredients. You know me, I prefer an easy-going relaxed but experimental approach to cooking. I knew that these pork streaky rashers had some fat running through the meat so thought it would be fine to grill them. Went for a simple marinade by basing it on previous experience with cooking pork and knowing that sweet and oriental flavours go very well with pork. Opted for a typical soy sauce, honey, ginger and chilli mix to use as a marinade for the pork overnight and let the flavours seep into the meat. It was very easy to grill these and then brown them for the last stage of grilling. These rashers are best served with a simple salad and boiled white rice to soak up the meat juices.

Found out later on that pork streaky rashers are slices of belly pork after I had scoffed them (!) and the ones I bought had the rind removed. Well you know what, I was really happy I tried these beautiful strips of pork as I love belly pork. They tasted sweet, spicy, succulent and delectable. Well worth trying less popular cuts of meat. I decided to be a bit greedy and had 3 rashers instead of 2 with a small amount of rice. My boyfriend commented saying that I was eating alot of protein in comparison to my meagre rice portion. I just said “I know, it’s the Atkins diet darling, you can eat as much protein as you like, err…well actually I just found it too tasty to resist!” I still don’t give a toss about the fat content because I know it should be a treat and that’s the way I’ll be viewing forever! Though I did walk the 3.5 miles from my home to work the next day with a smile on my face knowing I was burning off the calories from my piggy-licious meal last night!

Oriental pork rashers

Serves 4

8 pork streaky rashers (approximately 650 g total weight)

2 tbsp light soy sauce

2 tbsp dark soy sauce

2 tbsp runny honey

2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp chilli powder (optional)

Marinated pork rashers laid out on a foil-lined grill pan

Grilled oriental flavoured pork rashers

1. Mix the light and dark soy, honey and ginger together in a large bowl to make a marinade.
2. Place the pork rashers in the marinade and coat the meat well, cover with clingfilm and marinade overnight in the fridge.
3. Preheat a grill to a medium setting and line a grill pan/baking tray with foil.
4. Lay the pork rashers on the foil, shaking off excess marinade, save this for later.
5. Grill the rashers for about 15 minutes turning them over halfway through cooking, then turn up the grill to a high setting, drizzle the remaining marinade over and place under the grill again for about 1 minute to brown the rashers. Turn the rashers over and grill for another minute to brown.
6. Serve immediately and spoon the meat and marinade juices over the rashers.