Cooking with... John
Yesterday, after having signed up for, and playing with (for a few days), StumbleUpon.com, a site that has a lot of different recipes on it. As I was browsing through the site (briefly) before hitting the button to move on to the next site, I saw a picture of Sweet and Sour Pork. I was immediately intrigued. After work, I spoke to Erin, briefly, about making it (mostly gauging her level of interest), and then raced off to the store to buy the needed items.
If you are interested you can find the recipe here.
Upon returning home I alighted to the kitchen, grabbing my computer, and started to put together the bits and pieces that go into making Sweet and Sour Pork.
At the outset, I didn't have any idea how long this would take and had some materials that once opened had to be cooked. So, they got cooked along with the regular portions. Amazingly enough there was enough sauce and marinade and sweet and sour for the portions of meat that I cooked.
What caught me (a little) off guard was the distinct lack of a meat tenderizer that we don't have. So, I took the rolling pin that we have and beat the tar out of the tenderloin on top of a cutting board. I would not suggest this as having to clean the rolling pin was a pain in the **woo-hoo**. However, the pork tenderloin was sufficiently tenderized and then dumped into a ziplock bag with the marinade which was all shoved into the refrigerator for a bit of time.
The thing about most American-Asian foods is the need for Teriyaki sauce... one of the key ingredients of Teriyaki sauce is wheat and so, I have to be careful before buying this. Fortunately, Erin found some a while back and I didn't have to worry about that.
One of the other elements of American-Asian cooking is Sesame Oil... again, Erin had purchased some for a dinner she had planned for us, probably stir-fry, but (before going to the store) we didn't have a lot left. By the time I was done with the first portion of the marinade, I was out of Sesame Oil (nasty taste on its own if you care to know), but fortunately bought some more at the store.
Anyway, there were a lot of little bits that all had to come together to make the meal work. For example, you serve this with rice. I wasn't interested in fried rice, though I do know how to cook that; and had to start a pot of white rice (the remnants sitting the refrigerator so I can quickly have Sweet and Sour Pork quickly in the next day or so), I had to have the sweet and sour sauce simmering while I worked the pork; and I had to adapt the simple recipe for breading from the wheat based ingredients to a gluten-free friendly recipe.
Making the breading gluten-free I decided to go with Bob's Mill Gluten-Free All Purpose Flour... the other half was corn starch (which actually surprised me).
Once the pork was done marinating, I pulled it from the fridge and dumped the contents into the breading and then pulled a wooden (actually bamboo, don't tell) spoon and pushed and pulled and mixed and everything through the flour to make sure everything was sufficiently covered.
While I was covering the pork with flour I had four cups of oil heating up in our wok waiting for me to get done. At first, I thought I could cook the whole bowl of pork at once, but then discovered that wasn't possible. In the cooking phase, I found it interesting that you cook the pork pieces for three minutes, put them on paper towels, let them drain (and the oil heat up again) and then put them back into the oil for two more minutes. In this instance, I cooked half, let it drain, cooked the other half, checked the sweet and sour sauce, put the first half back in, dumped (and stirred) the first half into the sweet and sour sauce; and then did the same with the second half.
When the pork was all in the sweet and sour sauce I started the arduous process of cleaning the kitchen. Honestly, I don't think there was a mixing bowl unused, a wooden (bamboo) spoon, measuring cup, measuring spoon, and etc. not used. The pile of dishes was actually on the verge of excessive.
I stopped that process as the rice finished cooking, asked Erin if she wanted some - RIGHT NOW - and then filled a plate with rice and sweet and sour pork and sat down to eat, far too quickly.
I think the process took me about an hour and a half to two hours. Cleaning took me between an hour and an hour and a half. When all was said and done I was done with the day. Granted, the cooking was good; I appreciated the fact that I found a recipe that was good and filling and that Erin liked (she commented that I experiment with foods and flavors too much and was surprised that this one came out well). In the end, I discovered I really enjoyed the process and, if for no other reason, signing up to a new website that will probably spam me way to much was totally worth it.
John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West
Real Heroes Fly