(咕嚕肉)

I made the other night was pretty good. Here's the RasaMalaysia site where I found the recipe I didn't exactly follow. Since I only used half of the pork tenderloin, I decided to make sweet and sour pork again, this time adhering more to the letter of the original recipe.

OK. So I added in baby corn and water chestnuts. But for the marinade, the batter, and the sweet and sour sauce - To.The.Letter.

I diced my pork into bite-sized pieces and got out the ingredients for the marinade: 1 tsp. soy sauce 1/2 tsp rice vinegar 1/2 tsp corn STARCH I had used corn flour before because that's what the recipe called for, even though I wondered at the time. But I started reading the comments on RasaMalaysia's site and found out that corn STARCH, not corn FLOUR, was the proper ingredient to use.

Ingredients for the sweet and sour sauce: 1 1/2 TB tomato ketchup 1 tsp plum sauce 1/8 tsp Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce 1 tsp oyster cause 1 tsp corn starch 1 tsp sugar 2 TB water

Mix all together and blend until smooth. To.The.Letter. I tell ya.

And this time I followed the recipe for the batter: 1/2 cup water 2 ounce flour 1/2 tsp baking soda 1/2 egg 1 tsp oil 1 pinch of salt

I mixed it all together except for the baking soda.

When I was ready to fry, I mixed in the baking soda.

I was out of the required peppers and I wanted some new flavors in there so I'm thinking 1/2 onion, coarsely chopped, 3-4 garlic cloves, minced, some baby corn, drained, and water chestnuts, drained. Not.To.The.Letter.

I did have the rice, pineapples, and peppers left over from the other night's dinner so I heated that up.

Pork into batter.

Coat well.

And fry. In batches. Drain on paper towels.

I'm really liking this batter although I'm not feeling the love for 1/2 egg. I ended up tossing the other half since I knew I'd forget about it in the fridge and end up throwing it away anyway when I found it next month.

Onion into the wok.

Water chestnuts and corn.

And I like to add in about a tablespoon of sugar for a little sweetness and for extra caramelization.

Fried pork joins the party.

A quick toss.

When I add a sauce/thickener to a stir fry dish, I try to move the food out of the way and slowly pour it down the side of the hot wok.

Like I said, I'm really liking this batter.

Pretty darn good.

And you gotta admit - it looks better than the first batch I did. But then, this is in daylight with no flash. And Mr. Hawthorne said he liked this better. Could it have been the corn and water chestnuts?