Sami's Pork Filet Stew with Asparagus

My friend Sami has lived here in Stockholm for many years and works in film and computer programming.  He has graciously let me stay in his apartment while I am in Stockholm and we have cooked for each other, sharing recipes and food philosophies.  My friend Sami is following a similar diet to the Atkins Diet at the moment.  The basics of this diet are pretty simple; it’s a high fat diet with no carbohydrates (carbs) or low carbs.  I’m sure many of you have heard of it and maybe even followed it.  The website for the diet that Sami follows is www.lowcarb.ca.   He gave me this site in case anyone wants to read about it more in depth.  I am studying Holistic Nutrition, so I am always interested in learning about different diets and the eating habits of people.  I wanted to share a typical meal from Sami’s kitchen, a recipe he cooks often and had gotten from a cookbook of his called Från Mitt Kok – Fardkost på vagen från 137kg, (From my kitchen- traveling from 137 kilos) by Anna J.D. Jacobsson.  I guess the author Ms. Jacobsson used to weigh 137 kg, which is 301 pounds and lost a lot of weight using a high fat, low carb diet.  The stew seems pretty Swedish, heavy cream and pork, but Sami told me it really wasn’t.  The stew was rich and the mushrooms added an earthiness to the dish- rounding out the heavy cream and pork.  As he cooked, I recorded the process, wrote down his recipe verbatim and took photos.  He had veered off the recipe from the book a bit with the Sambal Oelek and chanterelle mushrooms- both great additions to the dish as the Sambal added a nice kick to the dish and chanterelle mushrooms added more depth. 

I have included the recipe for Sami’s Pork Filet Stew:

Serves 3-4

1pound Pork filet, cut into cubes

1 yellow onion, medium diced

Sambal Oelek, light soy sauce, veal demi glace, heavy cream, tomato paste

 

 

1 red bell pepper, cut into thin slices

50grams chanterelle mushrooms

50grams button mushrooms, sliced or quartered

2 cloves of garlic, pressed or minced

1TBLS unsalted butter

1 2/3cup heavy cream

1TBLS tomato paste

2tsp Sambal Oelek

2TBLS light soy sauce

2TBLS veal stock demi glace or 1cup beef/veal stock reduced by 60%

First sauté onions and mushrooms with the butter until the onions are caramelized.  Add the red bell peppers and lightly sweat for about 1 minute.  Remove from heat and set aside.  Next brown the pork over high heat, just so the sides are browned- do not cook all the way through.  Put the sautéed vegetables back into the pan and add the garlic, Sambal, soy sauce, tomato paste and lastly the cream.  Let it simmer for about 10 minutes on low, season with salt and pepper as needed.  Boil water and blanche the asparagus for about 45 seconds for thin stalks.  If you are not serving the asparagus immediately, shock the cooked asparagus right away in ice water so the asparagus won’t over-cook.  Dish the stew into bowls and garnish with the asparagus on top.  Well, this is Sammi’ stew, if you make this recipe, enjoy and if you eat carbs, I recommend this stew with brown rice or whole grain pasta…  a great compliment to this hearty stew.

Keep eating!!