I’ll admit that it’s difficult to produce an appealing image of what is essentially, mince meat in lettuce. But let me tell you, when you have one of these hot little lettuce numbers in your hands, you’ll be thanking the heavens for such mince-meaty goodness. It also helps that they’re super easy to make. I have no exciting back-story for this recipe, except to say that it was a warm night and I couldn’t face making hamburgers, meatballs or tacos again, so Mr R. came up with the brilliant suggestion of making ‘those yummy mince meat lettuce cups’.

So here goes my version of san choi bao…

Ingredients:

500 g pork or chicken mince (although I used combined pork & veal)

vegetable oil

2 cloves finely chopped garlic

1 knob finely chopped ginger

4 thinly & diagonally sliced spring onions

small tin water chestnuts

2 tablespoons soy sauce

2 tablespoons oyster sauce

1 tablespoon hoisin sauce plus extra for drizzling

2 teaspoons caster sugar

pinch dried chilli flakes

iceberg lettuce

In a wok or large frying pan, gently fry the garlic and ginger in a little oil. Once you can smell their lovely combined aroma, add your variety of mince and increase the heat. Fry until just cooked and season a little. Drain the water chestnuts and rinse well, then pat dry and finely dice. Add most of the spring onions (save a little for garnishing) and water chestnuts to the wok and stir well to combine.

You can mix the next few ingredients in a small bowl first then add this to the wok, or just add them straight to the wok if you’re a little impatient like me. Cook for a further minute, stirring the mixture until all flavours are combined. Check for seasoning and add chilli or extra soy if you so desire.

Prepare about 8 whole lettuce leaves, washing and then drying these carefully. Trim the leaves if necessary so that they form a cup. Spoon a little of the mixture into each cup, drizzle these with hoisin sauce and garnish with spring onions. Yummo!