Pork and Red Pepper

October 24, 2000

We headed north for a conference last weekend. The venue was a hotel nestled in rolling countryside and right on the edge of the chardonnay block of a vineyard. The setting was peaceful, elegant and the chalets were extremely comfortable. Truly hard work!

Hotel du Vin is a favoured place for corporate retreats and team building sessions, though we were all fairly glad we didn't have to engage in any of the latter. The sight of a snake of blindfolded women clutching one another and following the leader looked more like the blind leading the blind than career enhancing.

We opted for more gung-ho activities - clay pigeon shooting, tandem sky-diving (not me!), tennis, golf, and lounging in hot mineral pools (definitely me!)

And we had ample opportunity to check out the vineyard's products at dinner both nights. There's something rather nice about dressing up in one's glad rags and standing on a terrace in a spring sunset, looking out at the vineyard and sipping a sauvignon blanc.

We made a return to the hot pools before catching our plane home.

Back home and back to the kitchen. As I mentioned previously, we eat a lot of chicken and fish.

But I branched out this week and bought some pork schnitzel. Our New Zealand Pork Industry Board has helped bring about changes in the kitchen with the introduction several years back of Trim Pork. Great fat-laden cuts of pork are a thing of the past. As the name implies, everything is leaner, lighter and definitely more versatile. The range of Trim Pork cuts has fat trimmed to less than 5mm and the bone and skin removed. I've included a picture of these various cuts.

Pork provides B group vitamins - thiamin (vitamin B1), riboflavin (vitamin B2), niacin as well as vitamins B6 and B12. Like all meats, pork is a good source of iron, zinc, potassium and magnesium. The iron of pork is organic such as 'haem iron' which is the most readily absorbed type of dietary iron. It has a moderate cholesterol content similar to poultry and veal.

Today's recipe has a Pac Rim flavour.

Pork and Red Pepper (serves 4)

400-600g pork schnitzel (thinly sliced pork)
1 tab light olive oil
1 red capsicum, cored, seeded and sliced
the white part of one medium leek, diagonally sliced
2 tablespoons finely chopped lemon grass
1 small red chili, deseeded and finely chopped
1 tablespoon fish sauce
juice 1/2 a lemon
1/2 cup light coconut cream

Slice the pork into strips. Heat a pan on high and quickly stirfry the meat until it is cooked and tender - about 3-5 minutes. Remove from the pan into a bowl. Add the capsicum and leek to the pan, along with the lemon grass, and chili and stir fry until the leeks have softened and are tender. Add the fish sauce, lemon juice and coconut cream and simmer for 3 minutes then add the pork and reheat. Do not overcook.

I served this with wild rice finished with finely sliced brown button mushrooms. A nice contrast of flavours and textures.