Recipe: Chinese stir fried pork mince with fresh herbs

Every fortnight, we would cook stir fried pork mince for dinner as it is quick and delicious. Recently, we discovered a new way of eating it - serving it with fresh herbs from the garden! As you all know, I have a herb garden and it has been flourishing and I was thinking of ways to serve and use up the herbs. This was a great pairing!

Stir fried pork mince with fresh herbs

After trying this dish with various herbs, four herbs that I like best with it are daun kesum (knotweed), Thai basil, ulam raja and curry leaves. All these herbs can be eaten raw, so all you need to do is wash them and then pluck the leaves from the stalks and then finely chop them. If I could choose only one of these four herbs, I would go for the daun kesum. Daun kesum is slightly spicy eaten on its own, but with the pork mince, the spiciness is toned done and is very refreshing eaten together. You can get most of these herbs in the wet market or even supermarkets such as Tesco (except ulam raja which is a bit harder to find outside I think).

Fresh herbs from the garden :)

I usually serve them alongside the stir fried minced pork, and to eat, just scoop some herbs with the pork and enjoy. If you cannot get these herbs, you can always substitute with other herbs that you like eating. Most of these herbs are good for your health, and the idea is to get more of this into your diet. For example, daun kesum is said to be able to aid digestion and is rich in beta-carotene, vitamin A, vitamin C and other minerals.

Both my kids love the pork mince, but for the herbs they prefer to eat them whole than finely chop (I don't give them kesum cos it's spicy). So I usually hand over a whole stalk of curry leaves to them, and especially Baby D would slowly pluck the leaves off one by one. Yes, my kids are a herb-eating lot! ;)

Stir fried pork mince with fresh herbs
Recipe by Baby Sumo
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 12- 15 minutes
Serves 4

Ingredients
300g minced pork
3-4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
2 shallots, finely chopped
3 tbsp cooking oil
2 tbsp light soy sauce, or to taste
1/2 tsp Shaoxing wine

Herbs you can use:
20g daun kesum
20g curry leaves
20g Thai basil leaves
20g ulam raja

1. In a large frying pan or wok, heat cooking oil over medium heat and add the garlic and shallots, and fry for 2 minutes until lightly browned.  Add the mince pork and cook for 8-10 minutes, stirring constantly and cook until the pork looks browned. Once the mince pork is cooked, season with light soy sauce and Shaoxing wine and remove from heat.

2. While the pork is cooking, finely chop the herbs. Serve herbs alongside the pork mince with some white rice.

Note: Do not chop the herbs too far in advance as some will oxidise quickly and leaves will turn black.

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