This is a reworked recipe of mine from my newspaper column. The crispy oriental flavoured pork chop, sat on a bed of noodles and shrimp in a spicy broth. The original idea came from a Ken Hom recipe called Taiwanese Pork Chops with Noodle Soup.  I met Ken years ago in the USA at a cooking event, that we were both performing at in the USA.  At the time, in 1984, Ken had shot to fame because of his BBC television series Ken Hom’s Chinese Cookery, so he was the big star of the cooking festival. He watched me do my stuff and afterwards he came over and we had a really nice chat, about cooking of course.

A good chicken broth (stock ) is essential to make this recipe work. A marriage of chicken stock, garlic, ginger and then the marinade on the pork chops makes this dish a star! And if possible buy your pork chops from a butcher for extra flavour. I bought my mine from S. J. Snape, in Stourport-on-Severn, one of my local butchers.

Ingredients Serves 2
2 x 6-7 oz (170-195 grams) Pork chops
2 pints (1100 ml) quality Chicken stock
60z (170 grams) Dried Egg Noodles
1/3 large Yellow Pepper
1/3 large Red Pepper
2 fat cloves garlic finely chopped
1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger
1 medium sized Pak choi
8 large raw Tiger Prawns (shrimp) peeled
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
Chilli flakes

Marinade
1 Tbsp Dark Soy sauce
1 teaspoon five spice
2 teaspoons sweet chilli sauce
2 teaspoons white rice vinegar

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 160 C (320 F)
2. Mix the ingredients of the marinade large bowl and set aside. Score the skin (if the skin was left on your chops) and place into the marinade, making sure to coat both pork chops fully, then refrigerate.
3. Slice the red and yellow pepper into thin slices and reserve.
4. Gently break the pak choi into leaves and cut the larger leaves in half following the stem. Blanch the pak choi in boiling salted water for 2 minutes and then cool with cold water and drain.
5. Cook your egg noodles in boiling salted water for 3 minutes, cool down completely with cold water and then drain.
6. Add the ginger and the garlic to the chicken stock and heat on a low setting .
7. Heat a non stick frying pan to a medium high heat and add 1/2 TBsp of vegetable oil and stir fry the red and yellow peppers without browning them.  Keep them moving around the pan. When soft, remove from the pan and reserve.
8. Fry off the 8 tiger shrimp in the remaining oil and season with a little sea salt. Cook on a medium high heat for about 4 minutes then remove from the pan and reserve.
9. Clean your frying pan and then put back on the heat with the remaining 1/2 TBsp vegetable oil.
10. Wipe off the excess marinade from the pork chops and gently place them into the hot pan. Brown the skin and both sides of the pork chops, then turn the heat down to medium and cook for five more minutes.  Now transfer your chops to the oven to finish whilst you put your other ingredients together.
11. Put the prawns, pak choi, noodles and peppers into your chicken broth so they can reheat.  When the broth begins to simmer, turn the heat off and ladle into two warm large pasta bowls. Try to make a mound with the noodles for the pork chops to sit on.
12. Take the chops out of the oven, sprinkle both sides of the chops with a few chilli flakes and place carefully onto of the noddles.

Chef’s Tips
I use a small pair of tongs to wind the noodles into a nest. The tongs are also useful to make sure each bowl gets prawns, peppers and pak choi before ladling some of the broth into the bowl.

You need to keep a careful eye on your chops when frying them because the sweet chilli sauce in the marinade will make the chops easy to burn if you are not careful.

Whenever I roast a chicken I make a stock from the picked clean carcass. I just place the chicken carcass into a saucepan cover with cold water. Add a couple of chopped up carrots, one onion, a bayleaf and a chicken boullion cube. Simmer (without boiling) for one hour then strain and then I freeze my chicken stock off until I need it.

If you like this dish but want to make it for 4-5 people instead, then you might like to try another of my recipes made with a Belly of pork which also has prawns in it.