. Sweet and sour pork

Chinese sweet and sour pork is a favoured dish in Chinese cuisine. It is also a very popular dish worldwide. The dish is made with lightly battered pork, pan-fried until crispy, juicy, and tender, then tossed in a fragrant sticky sauce with a perfectly balanced sweet and sour taste.

Though, this sweet and sour pork in China  has three different variants which only domestic gastronomes can quite distinguish: Sweet and sour pork (糖醋里脊 tángcù lǐjǐ), sweet and sour pork (咕噜肉/咕老肉cu lurou), and sweet and sour pork (锅包肉/鍋包肉guo bao rou).

All the dishes have a bright orange-red color, and a delicious sweet and sour taste. The pork meat is fried until crispy. It’s stir-fried with aromatics and coated with a thin layer of sauce that has a fruity, pungent, vinegary aroma and sweet and fragrant in flavor.

However, the three variants  have just common ground in pork, coated with a batter, and the vinegar and sugar as irreplaceable ingredients. Others as specific flavor, aromatics, the cuts of pork, specific spices and seasoning, on the other hand are unlike.

The most knownn one,  sweet and sour pork (咕噜肉/咕老肉cu lurou) Cantonese and Hong Kong style dish. This one the meat is pork belly or pork ribs, cutting in pieces, dry starch coated and deep fried until golden and crunchy. The sauce is  authentic fruity, sweet and sour with pineapple mixing in vinegar and sugar thick sauce.  The Sweet and sour pork (咕噜肉/咕老肉cu lurou) doesn’t have traditonal Chinese spices garlic, peppers or  ginger in cooking process.

These days, red, green bell peppers and diced onions are added to pineapple giving extra flavor to the dish. And  sweet and sour pork (咕噜肉/咕老肉cu lurou) Cantonese and Hong Kong style  is made fromtenderloin or striploin by new generation cooks and younger housewifes too.

The second sweet and sour pork (糖醋里脊 tángcù lǐjǐ) is Chinese overall pork dish. Used meat is tenderloin or striploin, cutting in strips, coated using batter from starch and egg-white. Sweet and sour pork (糖醋里脊 tángcù lǐjǐ) has shallots, garlic in cooking process to get the fragrant  crunchy meat . To make the sauce richly, sometimes sesame oil and soy sauce are added in the vinegar and sugar mixture. Since it is a dish of which preparation found in many locations of China, the vinegar is not the same white vinegar that typically used in the traditional  sweet and sour pork. It could be the local, aromatic vinegar or brown vinegar.

Tenderloin or striploin is also the pork for  sweet and sour pork  dish (锅包肉/鍋包肉guo bao rou), but the meat is cut in slices. This sweet and sour pork is a dish of China’s Northeastern cuisine, which is tipically richly seasoned. Greasy, salty and spicy is the characteristics of Chinese Norteastern dishes.

The lightly battered pork uses starch, water, egg-white mixed with many oil. The vinegar and sugar sauce is usually thin. Not as thick as the sauce of another two dishes prepared. The ingredients for thin sauce are often using soy sauce, garlich, parsley and shred  radish.

In China and in the circle of Overseas Chinese gastronomy worldwide, at the very beginning there was only original sweet and sour pork of three; especially there was almost the Cantonese style, the sweet and sour pork (咕噜肉/咕老肉cu lurou) , but to meet demands, there have been some developments on this dish. Now, the pork can be substituted by other ingredients like chicken, beef or pork ribs. And red, green bell pepper  and spieces are added to the pineapple. Plus, the cooks start using ketchup, instead of vinegar and sugar mixture to prepare the thick, spoon-coating sauce that is often more time consuming.  The ketchup will produce  a nice bit of color, but  it is no more authentic  flavors of Chinese sweet and sour pork.