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Sweet and sour pork

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Sweet and sour pork, whats not to love? Take away versions are great, but, home made will wipe the floor if you box clever. Cut your meat into bite-size cubes and marinade in the five spice powder overnight if possible, it will transform your sweet and sour pork amazingly!

Now this is bit like cooking Indian food; preparation is every thing! So get all your ingredients out, grab some little pots and some storage containers. It'll be fine trust me ;-) I've broken this down into stages. You could also if you prefer blend the sauce down once you've cooked your vegetables. Set it a blender 'till it's just sauce and have it like the little pots that come from the Chinese take away. I occasionally do this especially if doing with say Chicken legs.

Click the Method tab below to see a step by step guide on how to make Sweet and Sour Pork with pictures.

sweet and sour pork cooked

ingredients

Here's what you need :¬)

serves 4

Meat

  • 375g diced pork shoulder*
  • 4 tsp five spice powder
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp ground black pepper

*Marinate overnight, when ready to cook add the ingredients below to your marinate pot and shake.

  • Juice of one lemon & zest
  • 5cm piece of fresh ginger diced
  • 2 cloves garlic finely diced
  • 1 Tbsp oil

for the Sauce

  • 1 Tbsp butter
  • 1/2 white onion very finely diced
  • 5cm ginger finely diced
  • 3 cloves garlic finely diced
  • 2 Tbsp brown sugar
  • Juice from pineapple tin
  • Water + pineapple juice = 1/2 pint (284 ml)
  • 1 Tbsp cornflour
  • 1 Tbsp Sriracha hot chilli sauce ( Optional )
  • 4 Tbsp Shaohsing rice wine vinegar*
  • 1 OXO™ vegetable stock cube crumbled

*Substitute Shaohsing rice wine vinegar with dry white sherry or a white wine vinegar if you need to.

Vegetables

  • 4 small tomatoes quartered
  • 8 thick slices of cucumber
  • 425g tin pineapples quartered
  • 1/2 Bunch spring onions
  • 1 green chilli sliced
  • Pinch of salt and pepper

method

Preparation is everything in making this an easy dish to cook. Once everything is ready, that's the bulk of the work done and once you start cooking, the dish comes together very quickly. I have three sets of preparations for the pork: the dry marinade, the sauce ingredients and then the fruit & veg ingredients. Here's what my kitchen looks like when I'm ready to roll!

diced pork after marinating overnight
marinated diced pork

Add the ingredients below to the marinated diced pork before starting to cook the sweet and sour pork

ingredients to add to the marinated pork
marinade for pork
sauce ingredients
ingredients pork
fruit and veg for the sauce
fruit and veg for pork

So, with everything ready to roll, let's set to it!

  1. Heat wok to very hot
  2. Add oil
  3. Add your marinated meat - *do this in three stages
brown the pork in batches
pork frying 1

*so the oil temperature does not drop & your meat boils.

  1. Keep going until everything's been browned.
  2. Once each piece is golden brown move to the edge of the pan
push to the side when brown
pork frying 2
continue until all the meat is browned
pork frying 3

Now move onto your next stage:

make the Sauce

  1. Add butter to the hot pan to melt
  2. Add your white onion garlic and ginger
  3. Strain your tin of pineapple into a jug
  4. Top it upto 1/2 pint with water
  5. Now add your sugar to the saucepan - melt it down
add sugar to melted butter
pork frying add sugar 1
  1. Add a crumbled stock cube.
  2. Slake your cornflour with a little of the liquid
  3. Add the cornflour slake to the pineapple juice
  4. Add vinegar & Sriracha to the juice
  5. Add to the pan and combine
add the juice mixture to the pan
pork frying add pineapple juice 1
  1. allow to cook on lowest setting for 30 mins
cook for 30 minutes
pork frying add pineapple juice 2

Now move onto your next stage

add Vegetables

  1. Add cucumber & stir
  2. Add pineapple & stir
  3. Add tomatoes, whites of the spring onions & stir
add pineapple tomatoes & spring onion
add pineapple and tomatoes
  1. Reheat the dish for 10 minutes
  2. Taste taste taste & adjust seasoning
  3. Add greens of the spring onions & chilli
sweet and sour pork
sweet and sour pork cooked
serving suggestion
sweet and sour pork noodles
sweet and sour pork with noodles
sweet and sour pork noodles

Sweet and sour pork with stir-fry noodles & beansprouts is a match made in heaven. See my Chinese Noodles recipe to see how I make that accompaniment