My take on a san chow bow style meal. This is packed full of veggies, a clean marinate, and all the delicious garnishes to give you something that is filing, crunchy, salty, sweet and abundant in fragrance!
‘Lettuce cups'
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'Lettuce Cups'
Rated 4.5 stars by 2 users
Category
meat
Cuisine
asian
Author:
Emma Aouad
You know when you make a healthy, nutritious, meal that the whole family loves? You get asked what’s for dinner and when you reply with what it is, there is a communal ‘YAY” from the kids. Yep, that’s lettuce cups for us , and whenever I need a little win, or the kids need a good eating day, I whip out this recipe.
This recipe calls for pork mince, but a chicken or beef mince would work nicely as well.
I use Tamari sauce by Pure harvest (a healthier alternative to soy sauce), and an 'Organic Teriyaki’ by Niulife (both available at woolies).
My youngest two like to have it with rice- they pop rice in the lettuce leaf and ‘sprinkle’ the meat filling on top with lots of sesame seeds. I use rice as a great addition to the work lunchbox to ‘beef’ out the meal and make it filling enough for my husband's active day (I usually double the recipe if I’m making lunches out of it the next day).
Ingredients
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500 grams of pork mince
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3 cloves of garlic, crushed
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Thumb size of ginger- finely chopped/crushed
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½ leek, finely chopped
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½ -1 carrot, grated
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½-1 zucchini, grated
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½ cup water chest nuts, roughly chopped
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½ cup Tamari sauce
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⅓ cup Teriyaki sauce
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1-2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
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½ bunch coriander, finely chopped ( for garnish)
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2-3 chilli’s finely chopped (for garnish)
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Sesame seeds (for garnish)
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Crispy Shallots (for garnish)*
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1 tablespoon olive oil
Directions
Slice, dice and grate all vegetables ready for the stir fry.
In a hot wok, fry ginger, garlic and leek in olive oil until lightly golden.
Add pork mince, mixing through and constantly stirring until all the mince is braised.
Add carrot and zucchini and mix through.
Add Tamari, Teriyaki and Worcestershire sauce and stir through.
After a few minutes, add the water chest nuts and stir through.
The mixture is cooked when all the sauce and water content is ‘within’ the mince.
At this point, give it a taste and add a sauce if it needs (if you like it a little sweeter, add more teriyaki, if you like it a little more salty, add Worcestershire and Tamari accordingly).
Lay a cos heart lettuce leaf down on a plate or bowl, add mince mixture and garnish with coriander, chilli, sesame seed and crispy shallots.
Devour, and don’t forget to have seconds!
Recipe Note
* I buy crispy shallots from a fruit and vege shop or woolies, but you can make some by frying chopped shallots in coconut oil.
The Hero utensil in this recipe is a multi-slicer/ mandalay to get really finely chopped, diced and grated vegetables. This allows the marinade to surround the vegetable which will intensify the flavour!
Don’t forget---> the greater the surface areas of a food, the greater the taste!