Breaded Pork Cutlets and Buttered Vegetables

A slab of pork rump that weighed 1.03 kg. was split in half to cook this dish and last night’s Pork Cutlets and Creamed Corn Sauce.

The <1>Pork Cutlets and Creamed Corn Sauce (previous recipe) was more than enough for five people–my husband, myself, our daughters aged 11 and 9 (and they have very healthy appetites) and the househelp. There were enough leftovers for the kids’ packed school lunch.

The second half of the pork slab became this Breaded Pork Cutlets and Buttered Vegetables dish. And this should be good for four people. Lunch for myself and the househelp; then an after-school meal for the kids at around 4 p.m. And there will be leftovers for my husband to munch on when he comes home from work while waiting for dinner.

That’s not a lot of meat, is it? There’s this Chinese cook whose program I used to watch when I was younger–Stephen Yan. It was a Canadian production. He said that when you need to feed a lot of people, or a few with very good appetites, and you only have very little meat available, the trick was to slice the meat thinly and to serve the cutlets with plenty of vegetables. The more colorful the vegetables, he said, the better as the appearance deflects the attention from the lack of meat. And he’s right. Like, if I had served the pork as chops instead of as cutlets, I would have needed around 750 to 850 g. of meat for a single meal. And my kids would have probably screamed bitin (read: more, please…) This way, I save so much on the cost of meat and nobody gets fat.

About the vegetables… you can use any crisp vegetables in season–broccoli, cauliflower, bell peppers, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts–and you can even throw in some sliced mushrooms or slices of several kinds of mushrooms.

One final tip: when coating meat (or chicken or fish) with bread crumbs instead of flour, you will need to add a little more salt. Commercial bread crumbs (or even home-processed crumbs made from commercial bread) contain sugar and the additional salt is necessary to balance the seasonings.

Ingredients :

500 g. slab of pork rump
1 c. of fine bread crumbs
1-1/2 tsp. of salt
1/2 tsp. of pepper
enough cooking oil for deep-frying

For the vegetables :

1-1/2 c. of carrot cubes, 3/4″ x 3/4″ in size
1/4 k. of green beans, ends trimmed and cut into 3/4″ lengths
1 225 g. can of crisp corn kernels, water reserved
1 onion, sliced
1 tsp. of garlic, finely minced
2 tbsp. of butter
1 tsp. of cornstarch
salt and pepper to taste

Cooking procedure :

Heat the cooking oil in a skillet or wok until it starts to smoke. Cut the pork into thin slices, about 1/8″ thick. Mix together the bread crumbs, salt and pepper. Dredge each piece of pork into the bread crumb mixture and fry, a few pieces at a time, in very hot oil until brown and crisp. Drain on paper towels and transfer to a serving platter.

In a medium-sized saucepan, melt the butter. Heat until frothy. Saute the garlic and onions for about 30 seconds. Add the carrots and cook over medium-high heat for about a minute. Add the green beans and cook for another minute. Add the corn kernels and continue cooking for another minute. Disperse the cornstarch in the corn water and pour into the vegetables. Season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring, until the sauce thickens. Serve with the breaded pork cutlets.