Sweet Sour Pork Wraps

October. The darkness returns. The annual test. But this October carries a difference — the plan. The MSN enrollment. The future that is forming in the same darkness that used to feel like a threat now feels like a chrysalis, the darkness that holds the changing, the transformation requiring the dark to do its work. I am changing in the dark. The dark is where the changing happens. The dark is the cocoon. The light will come. The light always comes. And when it comes, I'll be different.

The book is half-written. Seven chapters complete. The writing pace has settled into a rhythm that the ER recognizes — the steady, sustained, shift-by-shift progress of a woman who knows how to do hard things for long periods of time because she's been doing hard things for twelve years and the hard is the only speed she knows. The chapters accumulate. The word count grows. The book is becoming real in the way that babies become real — slowly, then suddenly, the thing that was abstract becoming the thing you can hold.

I made sinigang — pork, sour, the October sinigang. The tamarind was aggressive. The sourness was medicine. October medicine. The annual prescription. Eat the sour. Stand in the dark. Let the plan simmer. The simmer is the patience. The patience is the changing.

The sinigang was the real October prescription, but this recipe — sweet sour pork wraps — lives in the same territory: pork and tang, the sourness doing its quiet medicinal work. I kept coming back to the balance of sweet against sour here, the way one doesn’t cancel the other but holds it, the way the dark holds the chrysalis. When you’re standing in October and the plan is simmering and the chapters are accumulating, sometimes you need a meal that takes the same ingredients your body already craves and puts them in your hands.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 15 minutes | Total Time: 35 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

1 pound ground pork
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup rice vinegar
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons ketchup
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 can (8 ounces) crushed pineapple, undrained
1/2 cup chopped green onions
1/2 cup shredded carrots
12 flour tortillas (6 inches), warmed

Instructions

Brown the pork. In a large skillet, heat vegetable oil over medium-high heat. Add ground pork and cook until no longer pink, about 6–8 minutes, breaking it into crumbles as it cooks. Drain any excess fat.
Mix the sauce. In a small bowl, whisk together brown sugar, rice vinegar, soy sauce, ketchup, cornstarch, garlic powder, ground ginger, and red pepper flakes until smooth.
Combine and simmer. Pour the sauce over the cooked pork in the skillet. Add the crushed pineapple with its juice. Stir well and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Cook for 4–5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the sauce has thickened.
Add vegetables. Stir in the shredded carrots and half of the green onions. Cook for 1–2 minutes more until the carrots are just tender.
Serve. Spoon the sweet sour pork mixture onto warmed flour tortillas. Top with remaining green onions, fold, and serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Sweet Sour Pork Wraps — October Medicine, Eating the Sour in the Dark