Stir-Fried Cucumber and Pork with Golden Garlic
It’s been a few Wednesday’s since I got around to getting myself organized to join the Wok Wednesdays circle. Missed it, both the connections with fellow cooks and food-lovers, and the tasty and satisfying results that grace (Grace!) our table each time I stir-fry along with all y’all. I am determined to back-pedal to make sure I cook up the fried corn dish (loved the note on the Southern connection for that one) and I will absolutely make this dish again. We all loved it, and it made a generous supper for our family with enough left over for my husband’s lunch today.
This reminded me how amazed I was the first few times I had cucumbers cooked. I grew up in North Carolina and I don’t know if it was the heat of summer or monolithic culinary thinking, but cucumbers here are for salads, relishes, pickles, sandwiches if you are dining with people who know from elegant tea parties. But I never dreamed you could cook them, simply because we didn’t. Isn’t that astounding? But a perfect example of how There Are Rules, culinary ones, which we don’t think of as restrictions, but as Just How It Is. Tomatoes get to be raw and cooked, and so does cabbage (coleslaw!) . But cucumbers? Mercy! They are lovely, still minty green and still crunchy, but made velvety and tempting by their flash-in-the-pan treatment. I also loved the golden garlic. Smelled so good, and added subtle delight to the dish. Next time I will make a fistful of it. I think having Golden Garlic on hand would be the gift that gives on and on and on.
It was not my best photography night:
I got no prep pictures, and the only in-the-process shot is, to my surprise on seeing it on computer screen this morning in full light, blurry. But I love the green-ness and the sense that the blur could be the stir-frying process action, and the steamy heat coming out of the work; so I am indulging myself to post it here it here, in all its flawed fuzziness.
I love Wok Wednesdays, and Grace’s glorious and generous cookbook, and I love cooking with my fellow WokWednesday fans. I’m all ready for what’s next as we cook our way through this excellent book .If you’d like to know more about Wok Wednesdays, visit our website by clicking HERE. You can join the fun, and also join our Facebook Group; details on the website.
For information on the inspiring book, Stir-Frying to the Sky’s Edge, which keeps us wokking, and on our Goddess of Wokdom Grace Young,
click HERE and Here.
I had the same photo problem – steamy heat of the food fogging up the lens! But like you, enjoyed the process and the dish.
You know, I don’t cook with cucumber nearly often enough! You’ve inspired me–this looks absolutely delish!