Sweet and Sour Anything

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"

• Ready In: 40 mins
• Serves: 4-6

Ingredients

• 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)
• 1⁄4 cup white vinegar
• 1  cup water
• 1  stock, cube (veggie)
• 1 1⁄2 tablespoons cornflour

• IF MAKING PORK

• 1 1⁄4 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.