This quick and tasty pork recipe was based on Kay’s Pork Strips. There is something that always goes so well together about pork, sweetness, spiciness and citrus, and this recipe combines them all in a 15-minute marinade, which is always my favorite because I never plan far enough ahead to marinate overnight. I wanted to make sure I would have enough for leftovers tomorrow night, and the thin-sliced pork chops I bought came in a pack of 8 (as opposed to the 6 called for in the original recipe), so I upped most of the other ingredients also.

The ingredients for the marinade go into a bowl. I used mandarin preserves as the base, but you could use any citrus jelly or marmalade. The original recipe used apricot jelly.

Add the pork strips and mix to coat well, leaving it to marinate for 15 minutes.

In the mean time chop up some scallions and a bell pepper. You could probably even add more veggies to this, perhaps snap peas? The veggies don’t get cooked very long, so anything that has a good crunch and is tasty lightly cooked would work.

All of the pork and marinating liquid goes into the pot at once. Don’t stir it… leaving it to cook on one side caramelizes the sweet portions of the marinade to the pork, and helps to thin the marinade into a sauce. Once you can see a fair amount of white creeping up the sides of the pork, you can flip it to cook the other side.

Once the pork is flipped, the peppers and scallions can be added in to cook a bit.

Serve over rice and garnish with a few fresh scallions. It was quite tasty; the mandarin preserves I used (Bonne Maman) had pieces of orange peel in it, which remained in the sauce and imparted bursts of citrus flavor while eating. That combined with the occasional spiciness and overall sweet and salty flavors made the sauce quite well rounded and a great compliment to the pork.

Sweet and Spicy Citrus Pork Stir Fry (adapted from Kay’s Pork Strips)

Ingredients

• 8 pork cutlets
• 3 heaping tablespoons mandarin preserves, or other citrus jelly
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• 2 teaspoon ginger, grated
• 1 garlic clove, grated
• 1/2 chopped chili pepper
• 1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
• 4 scallions, sliced
• 1 tablespoon peanut oil

Directions

1. Combine preserves, honey, soy sauce, oil, ginger, garlic and the chili pepper in a bowl and whisk together.
2. Slice pork cutlets in to 1-inch strips and add to the bowl with the marinade. Stir so that all of the pork is coated and let sit for 15 minutes.
3. Heat a high-temp oil like peanut oil over high heat in a frying pan. When it is really hot add the pork and all of the marinade.
4. Don’t stir the pork, just let it cook for 2-3 minutes or until you start seen the bottom of the pork strips turning white.
5. Turn the pork over and add the bell pepper and the scallions and cook for a few more minutes, until pork is cooked through.
6. Serve over rice and garnish with fresh slices of scallion.