Sticky Pork Tortilla Cups with Butter Lettuce

Sticky Pork Tortilla Cups with Butter Lettuce.

Makes 4 · Ready in 30 minutes

This started as san choy bau and ended up somewhere more useful, because the cup is a tortilla pressed into a muffin tin and baked until it crisps. It holds its shape, it holds a hot filling, and it means you can make the whole thing an hour before people arrive instead of assembling at the table.

The Butterleaf goes in first, roughly chopped, sitting under the pork. It keeps the base of the cup from going soft and it gives you something cool and green against a filling that is sweet, salty and warm.

Ingredients

• 4 small flour tortillas, about 15cm
• 2 large handfuls of Stacked Farm Butter leaf, roughly chopped
• 200g pork or chicken mince, or firm tofu
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp grated ginger
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 1 tbsp hoisin sauce
• 1 spring onion, sliced
• 1 tbsp toasted peanuts, crushed
• Oil spray

Method

1. Heat the oven to 180°C. Spray the tortillas lightly with oil, then press one down into each hole of a large muffin tin using the base of a small glass.
2. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes until golden, then leave them in the tin to cool, which is when they crisp properly.
3. While the cups cool, cook the mince with the garlic and ginger in a hot pan until it is properly browned.
4. Add the soy sauce, sesame oil and hoisin, and keep cooking until the sauce turns sticky and coats the meat.
5. Put a small handful of chopped Butterleaf in the bottom of each cup, spoon the hot pork over the top, and finish with the spring onion and crushed peanuts.

Lettuce first, always. It's doing a job down there, keeping the wet stuff off the tortilla, and it's the only cold thing in the cup. Fill them right before you serve and they'll still crunch.

Why it works

You get three textures in one bite, which is more than most party food manages. The tortilla is crisp and slightly chewy at the edge, the Butterleaf is cool and soft, and the pork is sticky and rich enough to need something cutting through it. The peanuts and spring onion do that cutting right at the end.

Make it yours

Chicken mince works just as well as pork. For a vegetarian version, crumble firm tofu and brown it hard so it takes on colour, or use finely chopped mushrooms, which soak up the sauce beautifully. Corn tortillas make the cups gluten free, though you will need to check your hoisin and soy too. Wonton wrappers pressed into a smaller tin give you a canapé-sized version, and a squeeze of lime at the table sharpens the whole thing up.

Rough cut, no core, no waste

Our Butterleaf comes as loose leaves rather than a whole head, so there is no core to cut out and nothing to throw away. It arrives clean, dry and never washed, grown indoors without pesticides, which means you can chop it and use it straight from the pack.