15 Minute Monday – Sweet and Sour Pork

Hi my name is Jessica and I love pork.

That’s it plain and simple. I love pork in any which way it can come – pork chops, bacon, ham, jamón ibérico, prosciutto – I love it. Unfortunately for me Ben isn’t as bigger fan of this delicious anomal as I am, but he is well and truly coming around to it thanks to my delicious recipe for sweet and sour pork.

After some research and recipe tweaking and I have come up with a recipe for the most delicious, succulent and non-deep fried sweet and sour pork that you will ever have. In fact, this recipe has become a weekly request in my house with pork finding its way to our shopping trolley without my guiding hand. So ditch the take-away menu and the jars of suspiciously gelatinous, fluro ‘sweet and sour sauce’ because this recipe is chinch to make and it is delicious!

Ingredients

600g of pork – I use heart smart steaks, diced. You can use chicken if you’d prefer
2 tbs of cornflour
2 tbs of plain flour
1/2 tsp of salt
1 tbs of peanut oil
1 medium brown onion – halved and sliced
1 large red capsisum – cut into strips
1 large carrot – cut into matchsticks or julienned if you’re feeling fancy
1 head of broccoli – cut into florets
3/4 cup water
Steamed rice to serve

Ingredients – Sweet and Sour Sauce

2 tbs white vinegar
1 tbs shao sing wine (Chinese cooking wine) or rice wine vinegar
1 tbs honey
2 tbs soy sauce
2 tbs sweet chilli sauce
1/2 tsp sesame oil
1 tbs oyster sauce
1 tsp fish sauce
1 tsp tamarind paste
1 tbs ketchup manis
2 cloves of garlic – minced
1 tbs tomato paste

Method

Place the pork, cornflour, plain flour and salt in a bag, combine, add pork and shake/rattle/roll to evenly coat the pork. This coating works thicken the sauce and to provide a healthy version of the delicious coating you get on sweet and sour pork in Chinese restaurants without having to deep fry the pork.
Combine all sauce ingredients in a bowl and mix well to combine.
Meanwhile, heat peanut oil in a large pan over high heat. Add onion and fry until translucent.
Add pork and stir well to ensure all sides brown.
Meanwhile, cook rice in rice cooker as per packet instruction, if you have a steamer tray on your rice cooker add your vegetables to the steaming tray halfway through cooking. I like to add the harder vegetables to the bottom layer i.e. carrot and broccoli stalks, then the softer vegetables like capsicum on the top layer.
Once the pork has browned add the sauce, water and stir to coat all pieces of pork. Add the vegetables, reduce to a low heat and cover to simmer for five minutes or until the pork is cooked.
Serve with steamed rice.

Now I can’t go past a post on pork without one of my favourite pork quotes….