Mah Haw
- 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
- 1/2 lb coarsely ground pork (I find Spicy Italian Sausage works well)
- 2 tablespoons fish sauce
- 2 tablespoons palm sugar or 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 1 medium pineapple (or 1 14 ounce can of pineapple chuncks)
- 6 slices long thin sweet red peppers
- 1/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves
- Cilantro Pesto
- 1 teaspoon whole white peppercorns or 1 teaspoon whole black peppercorn
- 2 tablespoons coarsely chopped fresh coriander, roots and stems or 2 tablespoons cilantro leaves, and stems
- 2 tablespoons coarsely chopped garlic
- First, make the pesto by: Using a mortar and pestle or a spice grinder, crush or grind the peppercorns into a fine powder.
- Combine the pepper, cilantro and garlic and work into a fairly smooth paste in the mortar or in a small blender or food processor.
- If you opt to use a blender or food processor, you may need to add a little vegetable oil or water to ease the grinding.
- To keep the pesto for later use, put it in a glass jar, pour a little oil on top to cover it and seal tightly.
- Heat a wok or medium skillet over medium heat.
- Add the oil, and swirl to coat the surface of the pan.
- When oil is hot, add the Cilantro Pesto.
- Stir-fry the pesto until quite fragrant, about 2 minutes.
- Increase heat to medium high and crumble in the ground pork.
- Stir-fry the pork until it breaks up into small lumps, renders some of its fat, and is no longer pink, approzimately 2 minutes.
- Add the fish sauce and sugar and continue cooking, stirring and scraping often to brown and coat the meat evenly.
- After approximately 4 minutes, when the meat is nicely browned, remove the pan from the heat and taste the sauce for a pleasantly salty-sweet balance.
- If needed add more fish sauce and/or sugar and return pan to heat in order to reduce the additions.
- Remove from the heat, transfer to a medium bowl and allow to cool to room temperature.
- Peel the pineapple and cut crosswise into 1/4 inch-thick slices.
- Remove the hard core from the center of each slice and cut into 1-inch squares.
- You should have about 2 cups of squares.
- To serve, mound a spoonful of savory pork onto pineapple square.
- Garnish each mound with pepper strips and cilantro leaves.
- Transfer to a platter and serve at room temperature as a finger food.
vegetable oil, ground pork, fish sauce, palm sugar, pineapple, peppers, cilantro, cilantro, whole white, fresh coriander, garlic
Taken from www.food.com/recipe/mah-haw-90951 (may not work)