Pork and beans, my way

What you see is an experiment that worked. It really needs to be called Lemon Peppered Pork with Pappadums, and you don’t have to have the pappadums, but who doesn’t like them? Besides, they are made out of chick pea flour and that sounds like health food to me, right?

Pork and Beans My Way

The most difficult part of the dish will be picking out the pork. It needs to be lean and fairly tender. If it helps I can say that the tenderer parts of pork are often paler in color. It doesn’t need to be as tender as a tenderloin—there’s a giveaway name if I ever saw one—but it does need to be as tender as, say, a pork chop. It cooks a very brief time and that means you are not tenderizing it at all. This pork was quite lean, but I still cut away any visible fat or connective tissue.

The finished pork dish is brightly acid and rich all at once. The last step before serving it is to balance the lemon with salt. I can’t tell you how much salt, because every lemon is different, but you’ll know when it tastes right, I believe. I used corn oil for fear that olive oil would add too much of its own flavor, but in retrospect I believe olive oil might add a nutty note I’d like, and that it certainly cannot overwhelm the flavors.

The pappadums I bought in either Rome or Florence and I have had them for years and years carefully packed in a plastic bag. I use only a few at a time and I think there were fifty in the package. They look like disks of thick paper when you buy them, but when you fry them they puff and twist into these big fantasy chips. The flavor is like nothing else I know. I wouldn’t say bean the moment I bite into it, but I wasn’t surprised the first time to discover that that’s where the buttery flavor came from.

So, let’s make pork and beans. This is easy to double, triple or whatever, but don’t crowd the pork when cooking it.

Lemon Peppered Pork

To serve 2

.5 pound or 250 g lean pork, cut into cubes the size of dice
1 cup or 130 g plain flour
1 teaspoon salt
.5 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
about 1 tablespoon oil
1 clove garlic minced fine
juice of half a lemon

Mix the flour, salt and pepper in a bowl with a fork. Dredge the pork in the mixture, tossing around with the fork until well-covered.

Heat the oil in a heavy frying pan. If you use a larger pan you may need more oil. When it is hot, add the cubes of pork, and turning them to cook on all sides, fry them for about five minutes or until they are just cooked through. Turn the heat off and add the garlic and then the lemon juice, stirring everything about to distribute it. Taste and correct with additional salt and pepper.

Pappadums

Heat vegetable oil in a small frying pan until it is really hot. I test by breaking off a piece of pappadum and tossing it in. When it puffs up instantly it is ready. One at a time, slide the pappadums into the oil. If it twists a lot you may have to turn it over with tongs to get some parts cooked. Remove with tongs to drain on paper towels. Two per person seems right but I expect three or four is more like it. These have a way of disappearing when you aren’t looking, even if you live alone.
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