Thai Garlic Pork
If I have to name a Thai dish that pretty much every Thai kid and adult loves, Thai garlic pork or moo gratiem definitely comes to mind. Why this dish? Because it's just oh so perfect with rice, our staple, and there's no chili in it, so you don't have to worry about it being too hot for kids. Of course, for those who don't eat pork, there are other variations of the dish as well. Here, people do have garlic chicken, beef, seafood or even tofu.
This Thai fried pork with garlic and pepper is one of the easiest tasty pork recipes. The main ingredients required are just pork, lots of garlic, and whole white peppercorns (no ground white pepper or it won't be the same!), which are so basic. All you need to do is massage the pork with freshly pounded garlic and pepper and a little bit of salt before frying it over medium-high heat.
For the seasoning, I use oyster sauce, soy sauce and sweet soy sauce. While the oyster sauce keeps the pork moist and also sticks the pork and garlic together, the soy sauce adds some saltiness to the dish. At the same time the sweet soy sauce is not something to be overlooked.
If you've read enough Thai recipes, you might have noticed we use sugar in our cooking. In Thai cuisine, we don't always add sugar to actually sweeten food. A lot of times we just use it to round out the flavor. For this dish, though, we're using sweet soy sauce instead of sugar because it adds a bit more stickiness to the dish and helps us achieve that nice dark brown color sugar won't. 😉
Now, when it comes to serving this Thai garlic pork, simply place it over or on the side of rice and enjoy with cucumber slices or salad greens for some crunch and added fiber.
Like how simple all this sounds? Let this easy Thai moo gratiem recipe be your next I-only-have-pork-left-in-the-fridge dish!
Thai Garlic Pork | Moo Gratiem Recipe
Ingredients
- 2½ heads garlic pealed
- 1 teaspoon whole white peppercorns
- 200 grams pork sliced
- 1 pinch salt
- 1 tablespoon cooking oil
- ½ tablespoon oyster sauce
- ½ tablespoon soy sauce
- ½ teaspoon sweet soy sauce
Instructions
- In a mortar, pound the white peppercorns until fine with a pestle. Add the garlic and give it a few pounds. The garlic doesn't need to be fine.
- Place the pork in a bowl and massage with the white peppercorn and garlic mixture and salt for about a minute.
- Heat the oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat and fry the pork once the oil is hot.
- Season the pork with oyster sauce, soy sauce and sweet soy sauce. Remove from heat when the pork is done and serve with rice immediately.
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