Oli
Oli
Resident eejit. Radio4, kitchen dancing, owning recipe books to read not follow
Nov 1, 2015 2 min read

Sweet and sour pork

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When I first got interested in cooking in the early 90s I was living in Cumbria, there was not a lot of cultural diversity in local food. For some reason I got a bit obsessed within Chinese sweet and sour and (much to the chagrin of my parents I imagine) I messed on with soy, ketchup and sherry, producing endless dishes of meat cooked in goo. It was one of the first things I ever ordered from a takeaway after I left home only to be disappointed but the large chunks of doughy batter in neon coloured over sweet goop not much better than my efforts.

Years later, I ran across this excellent post on One Man’s Meat for crispy pork deep fried and with a sweet and sour sauce which looked excellent.

Here’s my attempt, mostly having a use up of ingredients I had in the ccupbaord and skipping the deep frying because I save that for chicken.

You will need

  • A large pork chop, fat cut away, meat diced
  • A tin of pineapple (and it’s juice)
  • A couple of peppers (chopped into inch square)
  • A large red onion (chopped the same way)
  • A spring onion (finely sliced)
  • A heaped teaspoon of cornfour
  • A large blob of Naughty Ketchup (or regular ketchup and a splash of chilli)
  • A heaped teaspoon of lazy ginger (or fine grated fresh)
  • A couple of tablespoons of sharp fruit vinegar. I used up some berry vinegar I had left over

Do

Lots of things on the move at the same time here but it comes together quickly at the end. Do all you chopping in advance.

  1. Cook pork fat in a little oil until cripsy
  2. Add the rest of the pork (I threw the bone in so I could knor on it later)
  3. Once meat is cooked through lift to one side (I left the fat in)
  4. Add the onions and cook until translucent
  5. Add the peppers and a couple of spoonfuls of pineapple chunks
  6. Slake the cornflour with pineapple juice, add ketchup and vinegar.
  7. Once the peppers have softened slightly turn the heat up a bit and add the sauce (it looks vile at this point) and a heaped teaspoon of grated ginger.
  8. Stir like crazy. The sauce will thicken, try to make sure it doesn’t catch.
  9. Add spring onions at the last moment.

Results

Apologies for the terrible photos, as the nights draw in the lighting gets worse.

Ingredients Pork cooking Onions softening Chopped and ready.  Note the dreadful looking sauce Ready for the sauce Ready for the face