Stephanie Izard's recipe for peanut-pork ragu caught my eye every time I flipped through Gather and Graze --- What an unusual (in my experience) combination of ingredients! Pork, peanuts, garlic, shallot, tomato, lime, and tamarind go together, as evidenced by many multitudes of Thai recipes. But white miso and harissa paste? Consider me intrigued.
Naturally, I decided to make this on a whim as a back-up dish when we were hosting a dinner. I realize it's probably not the case for most people, but I have an excessively stocked pantry, so (unlike most of Stephanie's other recipes in Gather and Graze!) I already had everything I needed at home except the ground pork.
The prep work for this peanut-pork ragu is very limited and you can accomplish all of it while the pork is browning. You'll just need to mince some garlic and shallot, halve a pint of cherry tomatoes, and roast then chop ¼ cup of peanuts. Don't be lazy about mincing the garlic and shallots, as you'll want them to be basically completely melted into the sauce. Likewise, it's not the fastest prep work, but it makes a big difference when you halve the cherry tomatoes (instead of leaving them whole) as only in pieces will they form a cohesive sauce. To speed this process, set about 8-10 cherry tomatoes on a small salad plate or coffee plate, then place another similarly-sized plate upside-down on top the tomatoes. This way, you can easily use a serrated knife to quickly halve many cherry tomatoes at once. If you have multi-colored cherry tomatoes, that will make the final ragu much more colorful, but it's certainly not mandatory to the success of this ragu.
I really enjoyed this Thai version of a ragu sauce (and so did Caleb and the other dinner guests)! The balance of sweet-sour-hot-spicy flavor notes is perfect and I could happily eat this on top of virtually anything (noodles of any variety, rice, roasted squash or sweet potato slices, zucchini noodles, a bed of baby greens, ... etc.)
Slightly adapted from Gather and Graze
Ingredients
- 1 pound (16 ounces) ground pork
- 1-2 cloves garlic minced (1 ½ tablespoons)
- 1 medium shallot minced (1 tablespoon) or ⅓ red onion, minced
- 1 ⅓ cup chicken stock
- 1 ½ cups (225 grams) halved cherry tomatoes about 1 pint
- ¼ cup roasted peanuts* chopped
- 2-3 tablespoons tamarind paste or ¼ cup tamarind pulp
- 2 tablespoons white miso
- 1 ½ tablespoons harissa paste**, homemade or store-bought or 2 teaspoons harissa spice powder** plus 2 teaspoons peanut oil
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- 1 ½ tablespoons sugar granulated or brown
- 1 ½ tablespoons fresh lime juice from about 3 limes
- kosher salt
Instructions
- Heat a dry medium saucepan over medium-high heat, then add the ground pork and stir occasionally, breaking into bite-size pieces, until the pork has browned (about 6-8 minutes).
- Do not drain the oil (even though it looks like a lot)! Add the garlic and shallot, then stir occasionally until softened, about 2-3 minutes.
- Stir in the chicken stock, cherry tomatoes, peanuts, tamarind, miso, harissa, tomato paste, and sugar. Stir in the lime juice and season to taste with the kosher salt (you shouldn't need much - maybe ½ - 1 teaspoon).
- Turn the heat down to low, then simmer, uncovered, until the ragu thickens considerably, about 30-40 minutes. Check the seasoning and adjust if necessary (with more lime juice, sugar, salt, or spice (in the form of harissa paste or chili flakes)). Serve immediately, over pasta, rice, roasted vegetables, zucchini noodles, freshly cooked corn, hearty baby greens (like kale and arugula) or with bread alongside for scooping the sauce up.
