Recipe - Stir-Fried Pork And Asparagus With Fish Sauce

One fourth pound Boneless pork butt
12 md Asparagus spears
One half teaspoon Fresh ginger root, minced
1 tablespoon Peanut oil
1/3 cup Chicken stock
1 pn Sugar
1 teaspoon Fish sauce (OR
2 teaspoon Oyster sauce
Thin cornstarch paste

This is a basic stirfried vegetable and meat dish. Adding just a touch of
fish sauce lends an interesting dimension to the taste.

Preparation: Slice pork butt (or comparable boneless pork) across the grain
into strips 2" by 1/4" by 1/8" thick. Wash and trim tough white skin from
asparagus. Cut asparagus into 2 1/2" segments. If asparagus is thick (3/4"
or more), cut on bias so it will cook quickly and be balanced in size with
pork strips.

Stirfrying: Heat peanut oil in wok until it just begins to smoke. Add
pork strips and stirfry about 1 minute until no longer pink. Add asparagus
and stirfry briskly for another minute. Before asparagus turns bright
green, add ginger, chicken stock and sugar; keep stir ring. When liquid
boils, reduce heat to medium, add fish sauce (not oyster sauce, though),
cover and simmer for about 1 minute or until asparagus is cooked but still
firm. Uncover, turn up heat, and push ingredients out of liquid. Dribble
in cornstarch paste, stirring continuously until liquid thickens. You may
need 1 to 2 tsp of paste. Recombine ingredients. Serve.

From Gemini's MASSIVE MealMaster collection at www.synapse.com/~gemini