Asian Pork Tacos

I am posting a taco recipe for the second week in a row, but I have good reason for it!

I enjoy Taco Night immensely in my house, partly because they are delicious and easy, but for another reason also. I serve them the way I learned how to serve them: I set out all the taco components and garnishments on a nicely set table.  I serve the shells directly onto the plates, but everything else is a la carte and served from the table.  This is the way dinner was always eaten in my house growing up. Whether at my parents' table, or either of their parents' tables, the ritual was the same: The table was set, drinks poured, and then all the food was set out in serving dishes or on platters, from which all of the diners in attendance filled their plates. It never even occurred to me that it was done a different way.

Until, of course, I started dining with my husband.

In my husband's world, the only way dinner is served is by the chef, and perhaps the chef's helper. Servings are put onto the plates before the plates go out to the table. In this way, attention can be paid to the aesthetic of the presentation, I guess....but I still think it's weird.

Before we had kids, when he made me dinner he always served it that way, and I thought it was just a romantic flourish. When I served dinner, he was confused and confounded by my need to create more dishes by putting the food in a serving dish before serving it. I agreed with the less dishes part.  Then, after kids, I assumed we always served dinner that way because it was just easier, being that we made up our kids' plates anyway, and also, what kind of self-sabotaging idiot puts a bowlful/plateful of food within reach of a toddler, when toddler hands are not wanted in said bowl or plate?

But as our kids have grown, our method of plate-serving has persisted, and in the last couple of years I have realized why.  I noticed that whenever we dine at his family's tables, whether it's his brothers' or father's or mother's table, the meal is served by the chef, onto the plate. A cultural difference? Perhaps. His family is from New Orleans as far back as both sets of great-grandparents. My family's roots are deep in the heart of the West. Could that explain the difference?  Another marked difference in the way our families eat dinner is the time.  My side of the family eats at 5 pm, maybe 5:30. If it is 6:00 and dinner is not on the table, people are perturbed.  At my husband's family's houses, dinner preparations do not begin until after 8:00 usually, and it is not uncommon at all to eat in the 10 pm range.  Are these cultural differences, or is it merely happenstance how a family learns to have dinner? Are early meals, served buffet style, the mark of a household with pioneer roots, borne from those who worked sun-up to sundown, and came home HUNGRY? Conversely, are suppers that are served restaurant-style, after hours of wine drinking, appetizer nibbling, and sparkling conversation the mark of a family whose roots are in a somewhat cosmopolitan Southern city?

While I think that Lex's family's way of eating is novel when we go and visit, I miss the buffet-style dinners of my youth.  For one thing, there is more time together at the table. The conversation starts not when people are putting their forks to their mouths, but when they sit down, observe the options, and begin to pass and serve. I think my kids do better with dinner served this way also.  It gives them a sense of control over what goes on their plates, and how much. I could swear they are more cooperative and I am more relaxed when we serve ourselves.

Taco Night is one of the few meals in our house that has retained the rituals of my family's way of eating. Maybe because it's really the only way to serve tacos, although Lex is still mystified as to why we don't just stuff our tacos in the kitchen.

So for that reason, and because these tacos are DELICIOUS, I give you Asian Pork Tacos, adapted from a recipe I got from my friend Margaret. Another spin on the meal I most enjoy. Who knows, maybe next week I will post Italian Tacos? Polish Tacos? Hebrew Tacos? The possibilities are endless, but this recipe is a keeper.

Asian Pork Tacos

1 tbsp. natural style peanut butter

1 tbsp. liquid aminos or soy sauce

1 tbsp. hoisin sauce

1 tbsp. oyster sauce 

3/4 cup chicken stock

1 3/4 lb. lean ground pork (Margaret's recipe calls for turkey which is also great. I think ground chicken would work well also.

Mix first 4 ingredients in a small bowl.  Brown pork in a large cast-iron skillet, drain off fat and, if you like (I do), rinse the meat with water in a colander to remove even more fat and then return to skillet. Add the sauce to the skillet and heat to simmering, about medium-low heat on my gas range. Add the chicken stock and stir, cook until stock is aborbed into meat.

Garnish tacos with (this is the fun part):

Shredded cabbage

Julienned cucumbers

Grated pepperjack cheese

Sliced bell peppers

Chopped green onions

Chopped cilantro

Chopped peanuts or cashews

Shredded Carrots

I put an array of sauces on the table, even though Lex puts only Sriracha on his and I put only sweet pepper jelly on mine, and the kids do not partake in sauces. It's the statement it makes:  so many options.

Enjoy!

Jessica