Sweet and Sour Pork with Wrapped Water Chestnut

One of the main signature dish of Chinese restaurant or takeaway has to be Sweet and Sour Pork. This dish meant to be very pleasing to the eyes, opens up one appetite and wanting to go back for second. A lot of the Chinese restaurants here serving this dish, I find it has too much of white vinegar taste to it or the sauce being too starchy. I decided to whip up a nice sweet and sour dish with a twist, don't be traumatized by a little effort for I know this recipes will be a keep for good authentic Chinese sweet and sour to please your guests.

Sweet and Sour Pork with Wrapped Water Chestnut
Ingredients ( for 2 persons)

• 150 gm lean pork fillet/chicken fillet
  
• 6 water chestnut-peeled and quartered
  
• some toothpick
• 1 egg
• 3 tbsp rice flour + 1/2 tsp soda bicarbonate
• oil for deep frying
  

Marinating

• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp shaoxing wine
• 1 tsp of sugar
• 2 tsp of light soya sauce
• 1/2 tsp white pepper

Sauce

• 1/2 green/red/orange/yellow pepper bell-diced
• 1/2 big onion-diced
• 1 slice of pineapple (optional)-diced
• 1 big juicy tomato - diced
  
• 1 tsp white vinegar + 1 tsp lime juice
• 1 tbsp of sugar
• 3 tbsp of Thai sweet chilli sauce
• 1 tbsp of tomato sauce
• 2-3 tbsp of water
• 1/2 tbsp vegetable oil
  

1. Sliced the pork thinly with a sharp knife to make 3x3 cm slice. You should be able to make about 20 slices.
2. Tenderized the meat with a meat mallet. Then marinate them with the marinating ingredients for an hour.
3. After marinating, take a slice of meat and a cube of water chestnut and wrapped into a small parcel. Secured with a toothpick. Repeat until done.



4. Beat an egg in a bowl and seive rice flour+soda bicarbonate into another bowl. Then dip the meat into the egg and transfer to the rice flour to coat evenly.
   
5. Heat up the wok with oil for deep frying. Once it's hot and ready, drop in the meat parcel and fry for 1.5 minutes on each side. You should see it's slight turning golden brown, removed the parcel from the hot oil. In order to create a crisp pork, we need to deep fry again for second time. Drop in the meat parcel and continue to stir. Removed and drained after it has browned-about 1minute or so.
6. Removed the toothpick from the meat parcel.
7. For the sauce, heat up a pan. Pour in the vegetable oil, once it's sizzling hot, add in the onion and pepper and stir fry for 2 minutes. Then add in all the other sauce ingredients and stir fry for a minute. Once sizzling, off the heat, add in the meat parcel and coat evenly. Dish up and served with hot rice.
   

The main difference you'll notice is the freshness of the ingredients, a bite onto the crispy meat with added crunchiness of the water chestnut is totally right :-) .
I really like this dish as it's colourful, so much of taste to it and make me salivating again.....
Give it a try.