It's two for the price of one night. Both involve ground meat, and I've made both twice and they are quite yummy. The second iteration of the Spicy Beef patties was served differently as I didn't get any couscous when I was at the store (and forgot to put it on the list, so...) I think I liked it better as a burger than as a "steak" type food. So.
The Pacific Rim Pork is being put up because a friend loves the movie Pacific Rim, and said his son will be VERY EXCITED to get to make something to eat that purportedly comes from the place the movie is set in.
So on to the recipes!
Pacific Rim Pork, which was originally in "The New Family Cookbook for People with Diabetes" and was published in the Washington Post, with lots of tweaks by yours truly. Because I never met a recipe yet that I couldn't tweak to make it easier/less complicated...
3 (hahaha, make it six or seven and you might be approaching the amount I used) garlic, chopped
1 pound ground pork (I want to try this with ground turkey sometime, or a mix of pork and turkey)
1 tsp crushed red pepper (I admit that I cut back on this, but I keep my crushed red in the fridge, where it doesn't go flat--keep the paprika and chili powder in there too. Stays good way longer that way.)
one smallish bag of spinach--the current trend of steamer bags in the veggie aisle is handy, one of those, roughly two to three cups if you squish it down.
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon (or more) brown sugar
Mix the cornstarch, water, soy sauce, and brown sugar. Heat a largish frying pan on high heat and if you are using ground turkey add a teaspoon of oil. The pork provides plenty of grease all by itself. Put the meat in and break it up some, then add the red pepper flakes and garlic. Fry until the pork is nicely browned. If there is a lot of grease, drain some of it out. Add the spinach and once it isn't overflowing the frying pan add the cornstarch mixture and stir. It will congeal quickly into a goo (and have you ever noticed just how much shrinkage you get with cooked versus raw spinach? I mean, you start with a huge bowl full and end up with a couple tablespoons). I served it over rice. You can also add bok choy or snow peas to the pork as it is cooking, I think I will try that next time.
Recipe the second:
Spicy Beef Patties
1 carrot, grated
1/2 cup yogurt
1 tablespoon chopped cilantro
2 teaspoons hot paprika (or 1 1/2 teaspoons regular paprika mixed with 1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne
1 pound ground beef
i bunch scallions, chopped
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Mix yogurt, cilantro, 1 teaspoon of the paprika and a little salt together, set aside. This is sauce for the burgers.
Mix everything else together in a largish bowl with 3/4 teaspoon salt. Form it into patties and fry until done. I served them on hamburger buns with dollops of the sauce. I ended up with five bun size patties from this.
The Magpie
