Sweet and sour pork
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 Sweet and sour pork |
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| Origin | |
|---|---|
| Alternate name(s) | See Below |
| Place of origin | China |
| Region or state | Canton |
| Dish details | |
| Course served | Main |
| Serving temperature | Hot |
| Main ingredient(s) | Pork Sweet and Sour Sauce Pineapple Bell Pepper Onion |
Sweet and sour pork is a Chinese dish that is particularly popular in Cantonese cuisine and may be found all over the world. A traditional Jiangsu dish called Pork in a sugar and vinegar sauce (糖醋里脊; pinyin: táng cù lǐjǐ) is considered its ancestor.
The origin of sweet and sour pork was 18th century Canton or earlier. A record shows that the renowned Long Family in the prosperous neighbouring Shunde county (of the Qinghui Garden fame, and the family was active in the 18th and 19th centuries), used sweet and sour pork to test the skills of their family chefs. It spread to the United States in the early 20th century after the Chinese migrant goldminers and railroad workers turned to cookery as trades. The original meaning of the American term chop suey refers to sweet and sour pork. [1]
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[edit] Preparation
The dish consists of deep frying pork in bite sized pieces, and subsequently stir-fried in a more customized version of sweet and sour sauce made of sugar, ketchup, white vinegar, and soy sauce, and additional ingredients including pineapple, bell pepper, and onion. In more elaborate preparations, the dish's tartness is controlled by requiring Chinese white rice vinegar be used sparingly and using ketchups with less vinegary tastes, while some restaurants use unripe kiwifruits and HP sauce in place of vinegar. Some of the more casual food outlets use diluted acetic acid as a substitute for white vinegar and synthesized red colouring in place of ketchup to keep the costs down, making the dish too pungent and leaving customers thirsty.[2]
| Sweet and sour pork | |||||||||||
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| Traditional Chinese: | 咕嚕肉 | ||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese: | 咕噜肉 | ||||||||||
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| alternative Chinese name | |||||||||||
| Chinese: | 古老肉 | ||||||||||
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[edit] Far East version
A related Hong Kong/Cantonese-based dish is sweet and sour spare-ribs (Chinese:生炒排骨 English translation: stir-fried spare ribs) and it is identical in methods except spare-ribs are used in place of pork loins.
[edit] Sweet and sour pork in popular culture
Sweet and sour pork is poured on the head of Mongolians by Mr. Lu Kim in the South Park episode Child Abduction Is Not Funny.
