I put the lime in the coconut (and some other stuff) and shook it all up

I’ve oft spoken of my praise for the braise. Of all of the culinary techniques out there turning an inexpensive cut of meat into a transcendental experience is easily my favorite.

Surely there are more difficult things to do in the kitchen, but few are as comforting and satisfying.

Not only that, but as a stay at home parent, it makes my job putting a delicious meal on the table that much easier. If I want I can set up everything to go the night before, drop the slow cooker insert in, set my time and walk away for six to eight hours.

As a result, I am always on the looking for new and interesting flavor combinations so I don’t fall victim to predictability. When I caught an interesting recipe on Mark Bittman’s blog for Coconut Braised Beef earlier this year I was rather excited.

It is a simple recipe using coconut milk to braise some cubed chuck and not long after discovering it I made it for dinner. It was good, but it wasn’t great. I think it may be a textural thing, but I’ve come to the realization that I’m not as much of a fan of braised beef as I am of slow cooked pork.

Deciding that I needed to try it again, this time with pork, I also wanted to add a little more of my style to the dish. I substituted srirracha for the dried red chilies out of convenience, then I proceeded to add mango and lemongrass into the mix. By the time I was done making my modifications only five ingredients remained of the original recipe in my now very Thai style dish.

To make the presentation more appealing (my wife loves colorful food) I diced some mango, scallions red bell pepper for garnish to make it look festive. Personally, I think that it ended up making the dish look like a pork sundae – and that certainly isn’t a bad thing.

The results of this experiment were phenomenal and, according to my wife, this dish vaulted to the top of her list of favorite things that I make. After nearly six years together and a lot of kitchen adventures I felt that for a first try it was a rather impressive accomplishment.

Personally, I’m not much of a fan of a lot of sauce on my dishes, but the braising liquid reduction with pureed mango was very silky and would taste good on a car bumper.

Interested in giving this a shot? Then head over to peaches en risotto for my coconut and mango braised country rib recipe.