Sweet and Sour Pork

Oh, Yeah!
You Can Make Yours at Home

Sweet and sour pork is southern Chinese dish.  It is not American Chinese dish.  If you look into other southeastern Asian recipes, they always cook with fruit and some kind of sweet and sour sauces.  

Prep Time: 20 Minutes   Cook Time: 20 Minutes   Serving: 6-8

In southern China, the weather over there is hot & humid.  For instance, Hong Kong, where I came from, has long summer and short winter.

The average winter temperature is about 60°F (20°C) and summer temperature is always 100°F (30°C).  To make people having appetite, we cook this kind of dishes.  
Traditionally, we deep fry the pork.  But I think you may appreciate a cooking method which is much healthier.  In addition, I add more vegetables than normal sweet and sour pork.  Enjoy!

CHEF NOTES

Feel free to replace the pork with chicken.  If so, I highly recommend the dark meat.  If you insist to use chicken breast, cut down the quantity of the meat marinade into half.  Then, the meat will not be too salty.

This ebook will teach you to cook authentic Chinese food in a healthy way. It will also show you how to get the beautiful colors, texture and taste you get from your favorite Chinese restaurants.

Sweet and Sour Pork Recipe and Directions

Ingredients 4 Bell Pepper (preferably 4 different colors; seeded and discard membranes; cut in bite size) 1 pound Boneless Country Style Ribs (cut in bite size) I Can (8oz) Pineapple Chunk (drained; Del Monte and Dole brands have a product in 100% pineapple juice if you are conscious about the sugar in-take) 1 Medium Size Yellow Onion (cut in bite size) 1 heaping tablespoon Flour 3 tablespoon Canola Oil

Seasonings

(For meat marinade only)
¼ teaspoon White Pepper (or freshly ground black pepper)
½ teaspoon Salt
¼ teaspoon Sugar
1 teaspoon Superior Lite Soy Sauce
1 splash Superior Dark Soy Sauce (optional; it just gives the color to the meat)

(For Sauce only)
1 Cup Ketchup
2 tablespoon Brown Sugar

Directions

1. Marinate the meat, at least 4 hours, with all the marinade seasonings
2. Before cooking, add flour and mix well to give a thin crispy coating (The flour will also act as a thickening agent for the sauce later)
   
3. Preheat a Dutch oven at medium high heat with canola oil
4. Cook the meat about 2-3 minutes on each side (Make sure there is room between each piece of meat.  It may need to separate into 2-3 batches.  If so, take out the cooked meat and put it into a plate and cover with aluminum foil to keep it warm.)
5. Transfer all the cooked pork to a plate
6. Turn up the heat to high and add peppers and onion
7. Cook about 5 minutes until crisp tender or desired doneness
8. Stirring regularly
9. Add pineapple chunks, ketchup and brown sugar
10. Adjust seasoning and add meat back into the Dutch oven
11. Quick toss to coat and serve with steamed rice on the side

Sweet and Sour Shrimps
Instead of
Sweet and Sour Pork

That's right.  You can switch pork to shrimps to make it sweet and sour shrimps.  It will be another very easy healthy dinner.  The prep time may take longer if you need to devine and shell the shrimps.  The recipe below shows you to switch up the original sweet and sour pork ingredients to make sweet and sour shrimp start from scratch. 

You can also check with another recipe with 100% store-bought ingredients.  (Click here to check it out)

Ingredients

Everything stays the same as above
1 pound Medium Shrimps (26-30 count; shelled and devined)
Eliminate the boneless country spare ribs and flour

Seasonings

Eliminate the meat marinade
The rest stays the same as above

1. Instead of cooking the meat in step 4 as above, cook shrimps about 2-3 minutes per side
2. As soon as the shrimps turn pink, take them out asap.  Don't cook all the way through
3. Shrimps will be cooked again when you toss them back in in step 11
   

Check out this crazily easy version of Chinese Sweet and Soup Shrimp.

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