lettuce wraps (or boats in our case!)

Picture and recipe from Kayln's Kitchen

We had these tonight for dinner, see recipe below. I made several changes. We used shredded pork (we had on hand), I didn't have fish sauce so I subbed peanut sauce, which was delicious, and we used romain lettuce leaves which made it less wrapy and more boat-like. We layered all the ingredients and then just sauced the top.

Asian Lettuce Wraps (or Cups) with Pork, Napa Cabbage and Red Bell Pepper
(Makes about 8 lettuce wraps or 4 main-dish servings, recipe adapted from The South Beach Diet Quick and Easy Cookbook.)


Dressing:

3 T Fish Sauce (I'm partial to Three Crabs Fish Sauce which I discovered from The Perfect Pantry)
3 T rice vinegar (not seasoned rice vinegar which contains sugar)
2 tsp. garlic puree or finely minced fresh garlic
2 tsp. ginger puree or finely minced fresh ginger
1 tsp. Asian sesame oil
pinch red pepper flakes

1 lb. pork cutlets (I used two large pork loin chops, cut in half crosswise and pounded thin)
salt and fresh ground black pepper, to season pork before cooking
1 T peanut or canola oil
2-3 cups shredded napa cabbage (less than half a head, sliced thin)
1 red bell pepper, cut into thin strips
8 leaves Boston, Iceberg, or Romaine lettuce, washed and dried

In a small bowl whisk together the fish sauce, rice vinegar, garlic puree, ginger puree, sesame oil, and red pepper flakes. Set dressing aside.

Thinly slice the napa cabbage and cut the red bell pepper into strips. Put napa cabbage and bell pepper strips into a bowl and toss together. Wash lettuce and spin dry or dry with paper towels.

Cut pork chops in half to make thin cutlets, then pound with a meat mallet (or something heavy) until the pork is about 1/4 inch thick. (Next time I would pound mine a bit thinner than the photos.) Season pork with salt and fresh ground black pepper on both sides. Heat oil in heavy frying pan and cook pork cutlets until lightly browned on both sides, about 2-3 minutes per side. Cut the cooked pork into thin strips and toss with about 2 T of the dressing mixture.

Toss the napa cabbage and red pepper mixture with 2 T of the dressing mixture. Then assemble lettuce wraps or cups by putting 6-8 strips of pork in each lettuce leaf, topped with a small handful of the napa cabbage and bell pepper mixture. I like to add about a teaspoon of extra dressing on top. Fold over or cup in your hand and enjoy!

If you're not going to eat all the lettuce wraps at once, toss the cooked pork with dressing but only add dressing to as much of the napa cabbage/bell pepper mixture as you're going to use. Refrigerate ingredients separately. I reheated the pork strips when I ate the leftovers, but it's not essential.