This delicious savoury mince filling tastes fantastic in Spicy Pork Pancakes with Rhubarb. This recipe was originally lost in the bottom of a post commissioned by Morrison’s back in 2010. But I’ve dug it out to show it off properly!
Rhubarb is often paired with ginger. This spicy pork pancakes recipe uses this traditional flavour combination in a savoury main course rather than a dessert. These pancake rolls are both sweet and spicy with a similar flavour to Chinese hoi sin sauce. Using plum jam brings a sweet and sour element to the recipe. Plum sauce is often used in savoury Chinese dishes so this isn’t a new idea.
The inspiration for my spicy pork pancake rolls with rhubarb
Back in the mists of time, several food bloggers were asked by Morrison’s Supermarket to come up with some pancake recipes using seasonal ingredients. Myself and three others took part.
My nominated ingredients were clementines, hazelnuts, pink grapefruit and rhubarb. I’ll signpost my other three pancake recipes at the bottom of this post. Today we are focussing on rhubarb.
I think of rhubarb as a fruit equivalent of celery. It comes in sticks after all. There’s a family legend of someone’s dog being spanked on the bum with sticks of rhubarb which were subsequently served for pudding. All very worrying, but I can vouch it was NOT a dog owned by my family and all kinds went on in the 1970s.
Also at the time of creating these spicy pork pancakes, I was crazy about a thick jam-like cinnamon paste sold in little jars by Morrisons. It wasn’t available anywhere else to my knowledge and sadly disappeared since. But you can replicate it (sort of) by mixing powdered cinnamon with jam. It would make a fabulous filling for my sour cherry chelsea buns.
Stewing the rhubarb
After cleaning the rhubarb sticks and cutting them down a bit shorter, they’ll need a brief stewing in a saucepan. I do this by simmering them briefly in water and sugar. Not too long mind, rhubarb has a habit of disintegrating, then it will only be good for crumble.
When the rhubarb batons have softened, drain the liquid off. You could set it aside to use in something else sweet and fruity. Or simply pour a drizzle over ice cream or mix into plain yogurt.
Making the spicy pork pancakes filling
First you’ll need to fry some finely chopped onions with red chilli until they go soft.
To bring a sweetness to the spicy pork pancakes filling, I am using finely chopped stem ginger. You find this in jars with syrup. If you aren’t sure your supermarket will stock it then you can get Opies Stem Ginger in Syrup easily on Amazon. (affiliate link)
Add minced pork to the onions. Minced pork always looks rather anaemic so it’s helpful that the dark brown sugar adds golden colour to the spicy pork pancakes filling.
Stir through until evenly coloured.
Meanwhile you’ll need to make your traditional pancakes. I have a recipe for them in my pancakes with fudge sauce post.
Assembling spicy pork pancake rolls with rhubarb
To assemble your pancake rolls, spoon some mince in a line down the middle. Top with a few cooked rhubarb batons and roll up!
Spicy Pork Pancakes with Rhubarb
Equipment
- 1 frying pan
Ingredients
- 100 g rhubarb cut into 3” batons
- 100 ml water
- 100 g dark brown sugar
- 1 tbsp groundnut oil
- 1 onion finely chopped
- 2 cloves garlic crushed
- 1 red chilli finely chopped and de-seeded
- 500 g low fat pork mince
- 50 g stem ginger in syrup chopped finely
- 1 tsp cinnamon ground
- 1 tbsp plum jam
- ½ tsp ground black pepper
- salt to season
- 8 pancakes
Instructions
- (Cook your pancakes if you haven’t already. Allow 2 pancakes per person.)
- In a small saucepan over a medium heat, poach the rhubarb batons gently in the water and 50g of the soft brown sugar. Do not allow to boil as the rhubarb will disintegrate into threads and you want it to stay intact. Keep on a gentle simmer whilst you cook the pork.
- Meanwhile heat the oil in a large frying pan. Fry the chopped onion until soft and then add the garlic and chopped chilli and stem ginger for a further 3-4 minutes. Add the minced pork, breaking it up into chunks with a wooden spoon. Fry until the mince is cooked.
- When cooked, stir in the remaining 50g of soft dark brown sugar, cinnamon, jam and ground black pepper. The sugar will caramelize on the white pork giving it a darker more appealing colour. Season to taste.
- Spoon a line of the cooked pork and a couple of rhubarb batons down the centre of each pancake and roll up. Drizzle some rhubarb syrup and more rhubarb batons on top. Serve immediately.
More pancake ideas using winter seasonal ingredients
If you liked this spicy pork pancakes recipe then see also the other recipes I made for this series:
Scotch pancakes stack with ice cream, pink grapefruit and whisky
And for another pancake recipe from this challenge take a look at Cooksister’s swede, chorizo and thyme savoury pancakes.
I really wasn’t sure about this one but I was proved wrong. Fabulous collection of ingredients to produce something really different. Loved it