How to make pot-wrapped pork with paste

Speaking of Northeastern cuisine, sweet and sour pork is loved by everyone and is very popular. However, making crispy and delicious sweet and sour pork requires certain skills. To make authentic sweet and sour pork, the cook needs to prepare the meat slices, coat it with batter and fry it. Every step needs to be treated carefully by the cook and no steps should be neglected, among which coating with batter is the most critical. The following article introduces the techniques and methods of coating the pork with batter.

1. Soaking meat slices in water

When making pot-wrapped pork, some people may have questions:

Why is the sweet and sour pork fried by others golden in color, while the meat I fry has many black spots or is even very black in color?

This is because the ingredients were not processed properly. As we all know, meat contains blood. If the blood is not handled properly, the blood will seep out of the meat during the mixing process with starch, and the fried meat will have many black spots.

After the meat is cut, put it in a container, add enough water, and refrigerate it in the refrigerator for 4 hours. Take it out and rinse it with new water. After rinsing the meat, add a little salt to marinate it slightly. This can minimize the retention of blood and water.

2. How to coat the pork in pot with batter

Coating with batter is also a science. When making sweet and sour pork, many people mix the starch paste first, and then add the marinated meat and mix well. There is no big problem with this method, but if you don't master it well, a problem may easily arise, that is, fried meat with "patterned faces". Patched faces means that some parts of the fried meat are covered with thick batter, while other parts are not.

How to effectively avoid facial blemishes? According to the chef, there is a simple and feasible method.

Put potato starch in a bowl, add water to cover the starch, and let it sit overnight to allow the starch to fully soak in. The next day, take the soaked potato starch and evenly wrap the meat slices. Mix well and then drizzle in a little soybean oil and mix well. The paste made in this way will be more even and will not be spotted.

3. Frying

Many people fry sweet and sour pork once when making it, but this is actually wrong. If you want to eat delicious food, why should you be afraid of the trouble?

Frying it three times is the best.

First frying: When the oil temperature is 40% to 50% hot, turn to low heat and put the meat slices in one by one, then change to medium heat and heat until the meat is shaped, then remove from the oil.

Second frying: When the oil temperature rises to 60% hot, put the fried meat slices in, remove the pan from the heat, fry until the skin of the meat slices is crispy and the meat is cooked, then take it out.

The third quick frying: When the oil temperature is 70% hot, put the meat slices in, fry quickly over high heat for a few seconds, and remove from the pan immediately.

Now that you have mastered the chef’s secrets, let’s take a look at how sweet and sour pork is made!

How to cook pork in pot

1. Wash the tenderloin. If there is tendon or skin, it is best to cut off the tendon or skin. Cut into large slices 3 mm thick, soak in clean water until the blood is fully soaked out, add a little salt and marinate for a while.

2. Cut carrots, green onions and ginger into thin strips. Slice the garlic and chop the cilantro into sections.

3. Take the starch paste that has been soaked one day in advance, pour it into the tenderloin, and mix it with your hands until every piece of meat is evenly coated with starch.

4. Pour water, vinegar essence, rice vinegar, soy sauce, sugar, salt and MSG into a bowl, add a little water starch and stir evenly. (When the mixing is completed, you can taste it yourself to see if it has the sweet and sour taste you want. If not, you can add sugar or vinegar essence appropriately, and a few drops of sesame oil will make the taste better)

5. Pour 3 pounds of oil into the pot. Don’t add too little oil, otherwise the food will stick during frying. When it is 80% hot, put the meat slices evenly coated with starch in turn. Don't put them all in at once, but put them in several times. Otherwise, the ones put in first and later will not be cooked together, and the ones put in first will be burnt while the ones put in later will not be fried yet. (Turn down the heat when frying the meat so it doesn’t get burnt. Add more heat to raise the temperature after taking it out.)

6. When the oil temperature rises to 80%, put the fried meat in batches into the pan at once. During the process, fry three times, and each frying time should not exceed two minutes. Frying for too long will make the food hard and not crispy. Fry until the shell is crispy and golden brown.

7. Put a little oil in the pot, pour in onion, ginger, garlic and carrot and stir-fry until fragrant. Pour the prepared sauce into the pot, bring to a boil over high heat, and pour in the fried tenderloin.

8. Stir-fry evenly, add coriander and serve.