Wasabi Chickpea Crusted Pork
Serves: 2
Time: 30 minutes
Don’t be shy of the wasabi, interestingly it doesn’t come out quite as hot as you might expect. The crunchy texture is fabulous and if you do love that feeling of burning nostrils that wasabi has, then you can always spread some wasabi on the actual meat before you crumb it.
Leftovers
Lunch for tomorrow is exactly the same, or you could mix it up and pop the leftovers in a roll or wrap.
Wrap it up and pop in the freezer.
If you do buy some wraps to use for lunch, pop the leftover wraps in the freezer. They make for a great thin pizza base, you can do a very plain and super quick pizza in emergency.
What you'll need
500g of pork loin steak
100g wasabi chickpeas
1/4 cup of cornflour
1 egg
1 packet of asian salad mix
1 carrot
1 red apple
1/2 bunch of red radishes
1 lime
1 piece of ginger
From the Pantry
1 tablespoon of fish sauce
1 teaspoon of sesame oil
coconut oil
salt and pepper
Optional Extras for Lunch
1/2 baguette / wrap
Feeding Four
I have added an xtra 100g worth of pork to ensure your portins are big enough, plus an xtra egg and lime and salad mix
Prep and Cook
Sometimes it's faster and cleaner to work backwards
I like to try and get all my vegetable prep out of the way before getting the chopping board dirty with meat. Because once you've had meat on your board, you need to either start fresh with a new board or thoroughly wash the one your using, and I am a touch lazy so I work backwards instead to avoid xtra washing up.
Prep Salad
Peel the carrot and cut into thin strips (I have quite a funky little peeler that does this for me it’s called a julienne peeler I highly recommend you get one).
Cut radishes into thin half rounds and pop into a bowl of cold water. This does two things - it will wash out any colour that might leech and it also takes away the harsh flavour that radishes can often have.
Drain off water and add to your carrots.
Slice apple into thin matchsticks (julienne). Place in a small bowl of cold water.
Add 1/2 the bag of Asian salad mix and set aside the other half to have with your lunch.
Make Dressing
Peel and finely grate ginger into a small bowl.
Add freshly squeezed lime juice, fish sauce and sesame oil and season well.
Mix altogether.
Crumb Pork
Tap that plate
When crumbing or coating, a good little trick to get a nice even coat is to lightly tap the plate that holds the ingredient. This gets it to settle evenly across the surface before you start each time. Lift one side of the plate up and tap it down on the bench.
Blitz wasabi chickpeas till they resemble a chunky looking crumb and sprinkle them onto a plate.
Whisk egg on a plate with raised sides
Sprinkle cornflour onto a plate.
If you have one big chunk of pork, you'll want to cut it into 4 even sized pieces.
Take your pork and place onto a piece of baking paper and use either a mallet or a rolling pin to flatten out to a thickness similar to your small finger.
Dip each piece of pork in this order:
Flour, then egg, then chickpeas.
Repeat with each piece of pork.
Fry Pork
In a non-stick frypan, heat 2 large tablespoons of coconut oil on a medium to high heat.
Cook each side till lightly golden. Approx 3 minutes.
Now because I like things to look pretty what I do to retain the green from the wasabi instead of a golden brown crust, is I turn my pork every minute for the whole 6 minutes.
Dress Salad
Drain the apples and add to the rest of your salad ingredients along with your dressing and season well.
Plate it Pretty
Slice your pork lengthways on a 45-degree angle then transfer onto your plate, allowing just the slightest of fanning.
Use your hands to build your salad up slightly of centred from the pork.
Enjoy!
Lunch tomorrow
Lunch can either be exactly the same as dinner or you could have inside a roll or wrap. Use up any leftover salad mix or leaves, add sliced cheese and mayo and some chilli sauce. Yum!