Pork in Tomato Sauce

Meat and vegetables

1. On the whole, pork in tomato sauce is not too high in calories. It uses lean meat, shoulder or leg, with few visible pieces of fat. Besides, the dish has quite a lot of vegetables, which lower the calorie count by adding volume. Depending on the season, you can use celery stalks, a juicy vegetable that replaces sweet pepper very well. If you like, the amount of vegetables and tomato puree can be increased several times, giving you plenty of tasty sauce.

2. If the meat was frozen, first move it from the freezer to the fridge so it thaws “gently” and doesn’t leak.

   

3. If you like, trim off large pieces of fat. Cut the meat into fairly large pieces weighing 25-30 grams.

4. Heat the butter in a frying pan over medium heat.

5. Fry the pork in it, stirring, for 4-5 minutes, until the pieces are browned on all sides.

   

6. Peel all the vegetables. Cut the carrot, onion and sweet pepper into small pieces.

7. Add the vegetables to the meat and fry everything together until the vegetables start to release moisture, about 5 minutes.

   

Tomato sauce

1. Separately, peel and finely chop the garlic cloves and the chili pepper.

2. Prepare the tomato pulp. If you have ripe tomatoes, peel them, remove the white parts, then chop very finely. If you use canned pulp, crush the contents of the can by hand into a coarse puree.

3. Add the tomato, chili and garlic to the meat and vegetables, season with salt and ground black pepper, and add 1 tsp of sugar (5 g), which makes the sauce much tastier.

   Since the vegetables are quite juicy and the tomato puree contains a lot of moisture, there is no need to add water. The tastiest pork in tomato sauce is made when the sauce is sweet and sour. You may even add a few drops of balsamic vinegar to taste, but only a very little.

   

4. Simmer the meat with the tomato, covered, over low heat for about half an hour. It is important that the sauce is thick and bubbles gently.

5. Taste and add more salt and spices. If needed, add water 1-2 tbsp at a time, no more.

6. Simmer the meat in the sauce, covered, for another 15 minutes, until the pork is tender. After that the dish is ready.

   By the way, you can use good tomato juice instead of tomatoes. In that case, at the very end of cooking, raise the heat a little and take the lid off the pan so the excess moisture evaporates.

   

Serving

1. For a side dish I suggest boiling potatoes: small tubers whole, larger ones cut into several pieces.

   The ideal way to serve the meat in sauce is with new potatoes, which is very tasty.

2. Put the potatoes on plates, add the pieces of meat and pour the sauce over.

3. Chop the green onion and sprinkle it over the dish before serving. If there is a lot of sauce, fresh bread won’t go amiss.

   Serve the sauce hot and don’t reheat it; cook it for one meal. The vegetables in the sauce can be varied to taste and by season. By the way, we have cooked turkey fillet this way several times, and it came out great. Just fry that meat harder to get a crust.