Recipe: Shanghai Stir-Fried Pork with Cabbage

Napa cabbage and scallions in our fridge.  What to make, what to make to use up these ingredients?

I found this recipe Shanghai Stir-Fried Pork with Cabbage that I had torn out of Food and Wine Magazine back in Jan 2012 (p.69).  I had actually thought about tossing out the recipe a while back (the ingredient list doesn't make it sound like it would be very flavorful), but I'm glad I kept it.

It's a simple recipe from Cecilia Chang -- ingredients include boneless pork loin, dried shitake mushrooms, cornstarch, dry sherry, soy sauce, white pepper, peanut oil, napa cabbage, Chinese chile sauce and rice.  That's it!

It ended up being a simple and easy stir fry with pretty good flavor.
A few things we changed and would do differently next time:

• Actually use dried shitake mushrooms (we used fresh ones, and the shitake flavor didn't come through strong enough for us)
• Use sesame oil instead of peanut oil
• Cook the pork until it's done instead of using the cook times in the recipe
• Add minced ginger, garlic and scallions (we added ginger and scallions)
• Add remaining cabbage at the very very end so that it stays crisp