Moo Shuing the Pork

The October Daring Cooks' Challenge was hosted by Shelley of C Mom Cook and her sister, Ruth, of The Crafts of Mommyhood. They challenged us to bring
a taste of the East into our home kitchens by making our own Moo Shu, including thin pancakes, stir fry and sauce.

I make moo shu pork regularly because I really like the flavors in the stir fry along with the hoisin sauce. I usually buy wontons rather than make them myself, but decided to get with the spirit of the challenge and roll out my own pancakes.

The dough is pretty straightforward: flour and boiling water plus a little oil. After the dough rests for a while, it is rolled out into pancakes about 6-8" which are cooked in a frying pan until brown spots appear.

Dough while it rests.

After 30 minutes of resting, the dough is kneaded until smooth and then divided and rolled into sausage shapes. The "sausage" is cut into equal pieces, which are rolled into a ball and then flattened and rolled into 6-8" thin circles.

The pancakes are fried until brown spots appear and then set aside and kept covered until needed.

Kneaded dough, ready for shaping.

 

 

 

 

Cut and ready to roll!

The stir fry is pork (I used tenderloin), shredded Napa cabbage, scallions, mushrooms (I used fresh because I found some lovely chanterelles in the market to mix with the other fresh mushrooms), egg and bamboo shoots, mixed with soy, a little sesame oil and rice wine. I left the bamboo shoots out - not a fan - but used the other ingredients. The stir fry takes only minutes, which is why it is important to do the more labor-intensive pancakes first.

Stirring the fry

Pancakes, sauce and stir-fry pork and veggies

The one part of this challenge I was not able to complete was the hoisin sauce. Bob cannot eat peanuts, so the peanut butter base was out. I had no black bean paste, so I used the hoisin I had in the pantry. It looks as if, with the proper ingredients, the sauce would be pretty easy to pull together. Maybe next time.

We finished nearly everything and, of course, the stir fry can be eaten alone or thrown into an omelet or on top of rice, so leftovers are welcome. This was a pretty tasty challenge!