Thai Dinner at Home

Tonight I made Pork in Peanut Sauce for dinner and we both loved it!  I got the original recipe on AllRecipes.com, but did make several changes to it.

Bailey's Pork in Peanut Sauce

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup reduced sodium soy sauce
• 1 cup reduced sodium chicken broth
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 1/2 teaspoons (=3 cloves) refrigerated chopped garlic
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 5 tablespoons peanut butter
• 1 pound boneless pork loin, cut into bite sized pieces
• 2 tablespoons canola oil (the original recipe calls for peanut oil, and claims it adds a lot of the peanut flavor, but honestly peanut oil is on the expensive side, so I chose to use an oil I had on hand)
• 1 small yellow onion, chopped
• 1 cup peanuts
• 1 bag (about 3 1/2 cups) frozen stir fry veggies (mine had sugar snap peas, carrots, onions, and mushrooms)
• 2 bags microwavable brown rice

Directions:

• In a large bowl, stir together soy sauce, chicken broth, ginger, garlic, red pepper flakes, and peanut butter. (The peanut butter will not blend in completely, but don't worry, once the sauce is heated it will melt into the sauce.)  Add pork pieces and set aside.  (I only set it aside while I prepared the onion, but it would probably be great if you could marinate it for several hours or overnight.)
• Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Add onions to hot oil and cook slightly.  After about 1 minute, add peanuts and continue cooking until onions are soft and translucent.  Pour pork and all of the marinating sauce into the skillet. Cook until pork is done, about 10 minutes.
• Add frozen veggies to the skillet and cook for another 5 minutes.
• While the veggies are cooking, throw a couple bags of microwave rice into the microwave and cook as instructed on the package. (Mine only needed 2 1/2 minutes.)
• Serve pork, veggies, and peanut sauce over rice.

The finished product:

The sauce was somewhat salty, but still tasty.  I saw someone commented on allrecipes, that they added milk to reduce the saltiness of the sauce. So, if you find it salty, that would be something to try.  We loved the crunchiness of the peanuts and that the pork was not dry at all, which is often our big complaint with pork dishes.  I will definitely be making this again.  It was fast and simple.  It would be a great home-made alternative on those nights when we think about getting Chinese take out.  One more picture to whet your appetite.

I hope you try this dish!