pork asparamaki
This is the first time that I have ever heard of this style Japanese fusion prep made with pork. It’s a common sushi bar, Japanese steakhouse item made with beef tenderloin but convention was no deterent. I had a chunk of wild pig loin out and I had a bad case of indecision. Kathy had bought some really nice asparagus at Costco mid week, so even after serving it to 5 the other night we still had plenty to play with in other ways. Necessity met indecision and a new prep is in the book. The hardest thing in this prep is roll cutting the pork. Make a shallow cut down the length of the loin and lay it so that your slice is about 1/4 of an inch above your cutting surface. Keeping your knife edge parallel to your cutting surface start in your pre-cut and slice the loin while you roll it away from the blade so that you end up with a large sheet of 1/4 inch thick meat. Like any slicing technique this is much easier with very chilled but not frozen solid meat. Blanch the trimmed asparagus in salted water for 1 to 2 minutes to brighten and fix its color. Remove it from the blanch and chill under running or ice water to stop cooking. Dry and lay 2 stalks in opposite directions on the pork so that the spear tips overhang the edge of your meat. With the stalks close to the meat edge roll it up so that the asparagus is completely encased. Cut that roll from the remaining meat and secure with toothpicks. Repeat. Grill the pork/asparagus rolls over a medium fire rolling them every few minutes to make char marks on all sides. After each side is cooked brush with teriyaki or yakitori sauce. Bottled works fine for this but there is an outstanding recipe for one in Shimbo’s book, The Japanese Kitchen. Drizzle the finished product with a bit more sauce, slice and serve. Our 6 inch long, 2 inch diameter loin chunk made two full rolls and was more than enough for us. A store bought pork tenderloin would be outstanding for this.






7:09 pm
erin_NY says:
Mmm, I’m thinking eel sauce would be fantastic on these as well!
7:51 pm
kathy says:
Oh my gosh!! I actually said that last night, but we were out so on our trip to Hmart today we got some!!:)
It was sooo good! I don’t even like terriyaki that much but this was delicious and it seemed pretty easy (ok, I didn’t do any of it, but John makes it look easy!)
8:03 pm
john_houston says:
It was easy. It was much harder to explain than to do.
8:24 pm
mike_NY says:
This is great. Only a couple ingredients and it ends up on the grill. I’ll have to remember this next time i’m at a picnic and people lazily throw chicken on the grill.
9:32 am
laura_denver says:
That looks delicious – another great use for the pork! (Our chest freezer is now called the pig pantry- because that’s all that is in it!)