Pork, eggplant, cashew and lime stirfry

This dish was a flavour hit!

The lime, herbs, fish sauce and the subtle hit of chilli was such a great combination. And the textures is this dish were also wonderful; the crunch of the nuts and herbs, the squishy eggplant and the spongy noodles to soak up the sauce.

I really enjoyed eating this, in case you couldn't tell!

Once you have chopped all the ingredients, this dish is quite quick to make too.

I served this with rice vermicelli. Usually I would serve rice, but we have eaten rice for the past few nights, so I wanted to do something different.

The noodles were actually really nice, and much easier to pick up with chopsticks than rice is!

What you'll need

* Serves four with a little leftover

500g pork steaks or fillet, sliced into strips the width of your little finger
100g roasted cashew nuts, roughly chopped
1/2 red or yellow capsicum, de-seeded and finely diced
2 spring onions  or eschallots, finely chopped
5cm chunk of ginger, peeled and very finely sliced (or you can grate it of you prefer)
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 medium red chillis, finely chopped (or you can add more if you like it spicier)
1 medium eggplant, peeled and finely diced
2 tbs fish sauce
1 tbs soy sauce
Juice and zest of 3 limes
1/4 cup each of fresh mint and basil, roughly chopped
3 tbs vegetable oil

Rice noodles or plain rice to serve

What to do

Heat a pan over high heat with one tbs of the oil, until smoking.

In batches, cook the meat, stirring to make sure it is evenly browned. This should take about two minutes per batch. Reheat the pan in between each batch to ensure it is really hot. Set the meat aside in a bowl.

Add one more tablespoon of oil to the pan and reheat again. Add the eggplant and saute for five minutes until softened. Add the capsicum and cook for a further two minutes. Set aside in a bowl.

Add the rest of the oil to the pan and reheat. Add the spring onion, nuts, chilli, ginger and garlic to the pan and stirfry for three minutes.

Add the eggplant mix and stir, then add the meat. Mix well, then remove from the heat. Add the lime juice, and sauces and mix well.

Serve immediately with the noodles or rice, sprinkling the zest and herbs on the top.

Love, love, love this recipe. Really tasty, strong flavours and not too heavy in the tummy afterwards!