Cooking with Dr. Monkey

Oh, hi everyone! I didn't realize it was time for me to show you my Five Spice Pork with stir fry vegetables on rice supper. I just stepped back in time to help out Julia with her chickens. I do apologize for keeping any of you waiting. Julia can finish up here in the past and I'll just jump back into the present to show you guys what I made us for dinner last night.


Since I had been meat free for two days I decided to make one of my old standbys for supper tonight.

I started out by slicing five different kinds of peppers. I sliced a sweet red bell pepper, a purple bell pepper, half a jalapeno, which is in the little dish in the center, part of an Anaheim chili pepper, and half of a banana pepper. As you can tell I like the peppers!

Next I sliced up half of the zucchini I had left over from the other night, a small shallot that my gf picked up at the farmers market yesterday, and a couple cloves of garlic.

Then I took out my two lean thick cut center boneless pork chops and I sliced them.
I then dredged them in a flour and Chinese Five Spice mixture. The mixture ratio is two tablespoons of flour and one and a half teaspoons of Five Spice. I don't use egg or egg substitute because I have found that lightly coating the meat works just fine.
The Chinese Five Spice I used is on the far right. I use the soy when I put the veggies in after the meat cooks up a bit. I used the peanut sauce and the sweet ginger chili sauces for dipping. And on the far left is my "secret ingredient" that really sets my Five Spice Pork above the rest, oyster sauce. The green tube is wasabi paste which I put a drop or two of on the plate before I serve it and and the other tube Korean chili paste that my gf's friend Michelle brought us back from her trip to Korea last year, I also put a dab of it on the plates before serving.After my wok got hot enough I put in two table spoons of canola oil, some cracked black pepper, the dusted pork and then three table spoons of oyster sauce. I love oyster sauce, and you can use it with beef and chicken as well, because it adds a smoky savory taste to anything you put it on while cooking. Also since it is salty you don't need to use any extra salt when you cook with it.
After the meat began to brown, I put my rice on to cook. I use jasmine rice because I like the flavor and the stickiness of it. It goes well with all Asian cuisines, Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Thai, etc.

After the meat was nearly cooked through I added the peppers, the garlic, and the onion to the wok. Also I added a dash of soy sauce.

After the peppers had cooked for about three minutes and everything was nearly done I tossed in the zucchini. The key to making this a successful and tasty dish is to make sure your pork is cooked thoroughly and that your vegetables are not cooked so much that they are soggy, they should all have a slight crunch when you bite into them.

Feel free to add any of the following to your version of this dish: carrots, sugar snap peas, snow peas, bok choy, Napa cabbage, daikon radish, or whatever your favorite vegetable is. And this dish would also be just as good made with beef, chicken, mushrooms, or tofu in place of the pork.

After I plucked some fresh basil leaves and finely diced two green onions I garnished the stir fry which I serve over the rice.

Let's eat!