Cow Boots Pork

I'm amazed that there are still pork dishes out there I haven't tried yet so far. Tonight I made Moo Shu Pork with mandarin pancakes. I thought mandarin pancakes would mean they included mandarin oranges, so I went and bought some without even thinking about it or reading the pancakes. I'm an idiot. The mandarin part was just in reference to Mandarin Chinese, not mandarin oranges. Coincidentally, aside from canned mandarins, they don't have "Christmas oranges" here, just clementines. They swear they're the same, but they're not! They're like the "other" type of mandarin orange and I really miss them. It's one of the reasons I'm excited to get home for Christmas! It must be a proximity thing, since the mandarins in Alberta came from China, Korea or Japan and the clementines here come from Morocco. Now I'm thinking that mandarin orange pancakes would be pretty good. I may have to try that some time. Clementine crepe has a better ring to it, maybe I'll do that instead.

This recipe was more or less taken from cooking light magazine. There, now I won't get sued for this one. The crepes themselves would have been easy enough to make, but from what I read I could just substitute flour tortillas brushed with sesame oil, so I did just that. I wasn't feeling particularly ambitious and my attempt at naan yesterday was so horribly unsuccessful I figured this was a good idea. I probably should have brushed the whole pancake with hoisin and sesame oil instead of just where I laid the pork. Oops.

There seemed to be a ridiculous amount of preparation for what basically gets overshadowed by the flavor of hoisin sauce. This reminds me an awful lot of the duck crepes we had at Gourmet Hot and Spicy, which is great, because we liked those. I also got to use Napa cabbage for the first time, which seems a lot more versatile than bok choy but serves the same purpose in this recipe, as well as those umami-infused shittake mushrooms. This doesn't really make much of a meal, but I haven't had much of an appetite lately. I eat something small and then go to bed before 10. I didn't realize turning 25 would make me live like a senior citizen.