Sweet and Sour Anything

Karen Elizabeth's Note:

I wanted to make sweet and sour something, started out with one recipe, ended up adapting another, and in the end, had a very good sweet and sour vegetable dish, with some chicken for good measure, although quite frankly, it was fine with just the vegetables. So in this recipe, I give you just the veggies, but feel free to add meat ( I cut two chicken breasts in thin slices and stir-fried them, then added veggies to that), I'm adding a note on how to prepare pork if you choose to use that. Also, use whichever vegetables you have, so many lend themselves to chinese cuisine. I should add that you will need to make the marinade even if you don't use meat, since you will use it in your sauce. Please play with the recipe, that's what I did! I've given cooking time allowing for meat, it will be less if you omit the meat. The original recipe comes from The Australian Womens Weekly "Chinese Cooking Class Cookbook"

• Total Time: 40 mins
• Prep Time: 15 mins
• Cook Time: 25 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 4

• 1 large onion
• 8 shallots
• 1 red pepper
• 4 ounces mushrooms
• 1 medium cucumber
• 2 sticks celery
• 3 tablespoons oil (I used sesame)
• 15 ounces pineapple chunks
• 2 tablespoons tomato sauce (ketchup)
• ¼ cup white vinegar
• 1 cup water
• 1 stock , cube (veggie)
• 1 ½ tablespoons cornflour

IF MAKING PORK

• 1 ¼ kg lean pork
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon dry sherry
• 1 egg yolk
• cornflour
• oil , for deep-frying

Directions:

1. IF MAKING PORK:.
2. Combine sugar, 11/2 tblsps soy sauce, sherry and egg yolk, stir well. Cut meat into i inch cubes, place into soy sauce mixture, stir until meat is coated. Cover, leave in fridge in hour, stir occasionally.
3. Drain meat from marinade, reserve liquid. Toss meat lightly in cornflour. heat oil, cook meat until golden-brown and cooked through, about seven minutes. Do this in several batches so meat browns well, drain well.
4. THE VEGGIE PART.
5. Peel and slice onion; slice shallots diagonally; slice pepper thickly, (remove seeds); slice mushrooms and celery; cut the cucumber into quarters lengthwise, remove seeds, cut cucumber into slices.
6. Heat 3 tblsps oil in large pan or wok, add all the prepared vegetables, saute three minutes. drain pineapple and add syrup to pan with remaining marinade, remaining soy sauce, tomato sauce, vinegar and crumbled stock cube.
7. Blend 1 1/2 tblsps cornflour with water, add to pan, stir until sauce boils and thickens. add pineapple pieces, season with salt and pepper. Add pork, if using, stir until combined. Serve over rice or noodles.

Reviews

[Tisme]

I made this with chicken & added vegetables, broccoli, carrot, snow peas and cashew's on top.
I followed the direction's and other ingredients nearly exactly..... I had to use gluten free soy, (may I add I did not like the gluten free soy and arrowroot instead of flour). I had to do this because DS's girlfriend was coming to dinner but everything was as per recipe. It is a very quick and easy recipe to make, I found the hardest part was cutting up the vegetables. ;-)
I cooked the chicken first then followed the recipe as written then adding the cooked chicken toward's the end and garnishing with cashew's.
DS, and DH loved it, myself.... I found it very bland....... BUT in saying that, I thought it need more soy which I did add a little more gluten free of but still found it bland. My problem was in tasting the soy, I found the gluten free did not have the same flavour, and I think that was the problem, as I do like a rich soy when cooking.
I have some left over that I will have for lunch, and am going to add normal soy to see the outcome, I bet I will like it then!
But apart from all that, it was truly enjoyed by the men in the family and they asked for it again!
Ohhh and after all that .............. DS's girlfriend ended up not coming for dinner!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! lol
Thanks Karen Elizabeth.

[Studentchef]

This is a great recipe! I used many of the vegetables here, but left out the pinapple chunks. I added pumpkin pieces instead and used boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cubed as well (although I had to cook that first before adding the other ingredients), It is really a great recipe to try!