Sweet & Sour Pork with Fried Rice

Matt's enthusiasm for my continuing attempts at cooking Chinese food knows no bounds. He went grocery shopping yesterday - without me asking - and picked out flank steak and pork loin since he knew I needed those specific cuts of meat for Dunlop recipes I want to try. Then, in consultation with me via AIM (I was still at work), he found my recipe book and went through it looking for recipes that could be made without a trip to the Asian market - I am, sadly, still lacking some basic Asian pantry items like chili bean paste. And so the decision to make Sweet & Sour Pork for dinner was made before I had even left the office.

A note on the recipe linked in the post title - that's the best I could find online, although it is somewhat confusing since the ingredient list can't decide if it's in English measurements or metric.

Anyway, the recipe. The trimmed-of-fat pork pieces sit in a simple marinade of rice wine and salt for half an hour, before being mixed with a batter consisting only of eggs and cornstarch. This batter is fairly close to tempura - has a certain fluffiness when it hits the oil. Anyway, I got even smarter this time with the frying and used a small pot instead of my stock pot to fry in. My stock pot has a good 9-10 inch diameter, while this little guy is only 6-7 inches across. That translates to being able to fry successfully (i.e. have enough depth of oil) without going through an entire container of the stuff. I am kicking myself for not thinking of this earlier. I'm not spending the big bucks to get peanut oil, which is a joy to fry in but costs over twice as much as canola. However, whatever oil you use, you only get one use out of it before you chuck it (unless you're frying similar items a few nights in a row - in which case it's fine to strain and reuse). SO....long story short, my oil goes farther if I use a smaller pot.

A unique feature of this recipe is that it calls for the pork pieces to be fried twice: once at a lower temperature (about 300 degrees) then again at a higher temp (about 375). I was astonished at how the second frying made the difference in texture. Before and after pictures also tell the story: the one above is after the first frying, the one below is after the second.

While frying and double-frying the pork in one pot, I had fried rice going in the wok. I've been making a lot of plain white rice to accompany this or that Chinese dish, and there is always some left over. Day-old rice is no fun to eat, but it is ideal for fried rice - and in fact, day-old rice is the secret to fried rice. Perfect! My first attempt at fried rice, months ago, was so-so, so I went online and loosely followed the technique outlined on this helpful website. This time, I was making a very simple fried rice - with just garlic, scallions, and egg - so I skipped all the instructions for cooking and adding meat, etc.

First, I heated a few tablespoons of canola oil and about a tablespoon of sesame oil in the wok over medium-high heat. When hot, in went about 4 cloves worth of minced garlic. A few minutes of sauteing, then in went some finely chopped scallions. When those were just cooked, I added all of my leftover rice, stirred briefly, and poured some light soy around the edges of the wok. Some sea salt and pepper also were added. When the rice was thoroughly mixed and looking a little on the dry side, I pushed the rice to the sides of the wok, turned the heat way down, added a tiny bit more oil to the now-clear center of the wok and added a couple eggs - not beaten - but just barely stirred, enough to break the yolks. As instructed, I waited until the broken yolks were starting to set before mixing the whole thing together, rice and egg. This technique gave me the perfect bits of egg throughout that I was looking for, but had miserably failed at when I first tried fried rice without directions. Amazing how a little technique goes a long way! Anyway, more stirring - some tasting - a little more soy - and voila. This was way too easy. It could easily be done in a regular saute pan, too - just remove the rice to a different bowl when you first add the egg, and then add it back in when the egg starts to set.

Once the fried rice was removed to a serving bowl, and the pork pieces done with their second trip into the hot oil (hooray for multitasking, as I was doing this all at once), it was time to assemble the sauce in the wok. I even had some homemade chicken stock in the fridge to use. 5 minutes, max, and the sauce was thick and lustrous.

What a meal. The sweet-sour pork was, just like the Gong Bao, heads and tails above take-out Chinese. I don't know where that saccharin-sweet, candy-red sauce that usually accompanies sweet-sour in take-out orders comes from, but it sure isn't authentic. I wasn't sure if I was more proud of the pork or the fried rice, which was delicious in its simplicity and which I now see I can vary to infinity depending on what's in the fridge. The fried rice could easily be a meal on its own with a little protein added. The sweet-sour recipe would work just as well on chicken. Overall, a smashing success.

And my man was happy.

Note: I have included the "Super Easy Recipes" tag on this post because the fried rice is super easy. The sweet-sour pork is, of course, more intensive.