Sweet and Sour Pork

Sweet and Sour Pork is a Chinese dish that is particularly popular in Cantonese cuisine and North American Chinese cuisine. The dish consists of deep frying marinated pork in bite sized pieces, and subsequently stir-fried in a sweet and sour sauce made of sugar, ketchup, white vinegar, and soy sauce, and additional ingredients including pineapple, bell pepper, and onion. This recipe could also be made with chicken.

Cantonese sweet and sour sauce is the direct ancestor of sauce of the same name in the West, and originally developed for sweet and sour pork. The late renowned chef from Hong Kong, Leung King, included the following as his sweet and sour source sauce recipe: white rice vinegar, salt, Chinese brown candy, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, and dark soy sauce. Hong Kong's gourmet Willie Mak, himself a long time friend of Leung, suggests contemporary eateries not to resort to cheap bulk manufactured versions of vinegar, ketchup, and Worcestershire sauce, or the sauce will risk being too sharp in taste and might break the balance of flavours. He suggests the more acidic white rice vinegar could be replaced with apple cider vinegar, and ketchup and Worcestershire sauce should be of renowned gourmet brands.

This recipe could also be made with chicken.

Sweet and Sour Pork
from http://chinesefood.about.com

This sweet and sour pork is prepared American-style with more batter and deep-fried twice for extra crispiness.

FMM: When you order this at a Chinese take-out, they give you three containers: one with the fried pork, one with the sauce and vegetables, and the other with white rice. This keeps the pork crispy.

We made this and the sauce is quite close to take-out. We added a little more pinapple juice to the sauce after adding the cornstarch because it was getting too thick and sticking to the pan. We could have used more vegetables, pineapple and sauce. Perhaps we used more pork than the recipe called for. We messed up on the batter for the pork (didn't get the oil and water in initially), so can't comment about this, although I do think the batter is is just about right if made correctly. We need to try again on this.

Directions for sweet and sour pork: Cut the pork into 1-inch cubes. Marinate in the soy sauce and cornstarch for 20 minutes.

In a small bowl, combine the sugar, ketchup, dark soy sauce, salt, water or juice and vinegar. Set aside.

In a separate bowl, dissolve the cornstarch in the water. Set aside.

Peel the carrot and chop on the diagonal into 1-inch pieces. Cut the bell peppers in half, remove the seeds and cut into cubes.

Heat the oil for deep--frying to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

For the batter, combine the flour and cornstarch. Stir in the egg white and vegetable oil [add a little of the water for more moisture in the batter]. Add as much of the warm water as is needed to form a thick batter that is neither too dry or too moist. (The batter should not be runny, but should drop off the back of a spoon).

Dip the marinated pork cubes in the batter. Deep-fry in batches, taking care not to overcrowd the wok. Deep-fry the pork until it is golden brown. Remove and drain on paper towels.

(If desired you can deep-fry the pork a second time to make it extra crispy. Make sure the oil is back up to 375 before you begin deep-frying again).

To prepare the sweet and sour sauce, bring the sauce ingredients to a boil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add the carrot, green pepper, and pineapple. Bring to a boil again and thicken with cornstarch mixture, stirring. Check the sauce one more time and adjust seasonings, adding salt and/or vinegar if desired. Serve hot over the deep-fried pork. Serve sweet and sour pork hot over rice.

Serves 4 to 6