Ginger Chicken (or Pork) and Rice (with SunButter Sauce)
Description
We had a salad for an ‘after school snack’, so that made this into a very simple one-pot, very little prep meal. The original recipe from Bon Appétit called for skin-on chicken thighs, but I had pork tenderloin handy and swapped it out (in medallions). It worked out beautifully as most dishes do when alternating chicken and pork as the protein, and of course, amazing sauce does the trick as well – enjoy!
Ingredients
1 or 2 pork tenderloins, cleaned and sliced into medallions – season each piece with salt
1 small onion, diced AND 8 cloves of garlic, minced AND 2 T. finely minced fresh ginger
1 c. basmati or jasmine rice AND 2 whole star anise
1 T. soy sauce AND 1/2 t. salt AND 1 1/2 c. water
Sauce
1/2 c. SunButter (or peanut butter)
2 T. EACH soy sauce AND rice vinegar
1 T. sriracha (or more or less to taste)
1 T. minced fresh ginger AND 1 or 2 t. honey (to taste)
water to thin the sauce as needed
For assembly – cucumber slices, chopped cilantro, sriracha
Instructions
Heat a bit of oil on medium-high in a large/deep skillet or Dutch oven with a lid. Brown the salted pork medallions for a couple of minutes per side and try to get a bit of crispiness – it’s okay if they’re not cooked through. Transfer the browned pork to a plate and wipe out your skillet.
Add a bit more oil and sauté the onion, garlic and ginger for a couple of minutes on medium heat then stir in the rice and star anise. Continue to stir for another quick minute. Pour in the soy sauce, salt and water, nestle the pork pieces evenly throughout the rice mix and bring it all to a simmer. Cover the skillet and cook for about 15 minutes until the rice is tender. Remove the skillet from the heat and allow it all to rest for about 10 minutes while you make the sauce and prep what you’d like for the bowls.
For the sauce – whisk together all of the ingredients in a small bowl, adding water a tablespoon at a time to get it to a consistency that you’d like. Smooth and pourable is the aim.
Pick out the 2 star anise, dish up the pork and rice into dinner bowls, garnish as you wish and drizzle everything with the sauce – we couldn’t get enough of the sauce!
