Skills for making pot-baked pork with paste

I don’t know if you have heard of the cooking technique of coating with batter. In Chinese cooking, coating with batter plays an important role. It mainly uses a layer of something wrapped around the outside of the ingredients to make them more delicious after frying. I believe that sweet and sour pork is a dish that many people like to eat. In fact, sweet and sour pork also needs to be coated with batter, but coating sweet and sour pork with batter requires great skills. Today I will introduce to you the skills of coating sweet and sour pork with batter.

Sweet and sour pork is a very popular local delicacy in Northeast China and is also a representative dish of Northeast cuisine. Because the taste of sweet and sour pork is moderately sweet, it is very popular among children and women. In Northeast China, when children or women order food, they will basically order this Northeastern sweet and sour pork. The production of sweet and sour pork mainly consists of meat selection, batter coating, frying, and cooking sweet and sour sauce. First, let’s talk about the selection of meat. Generally, the most commonly used ingredient for making sweet and sour pork is pork tenderloin. Secondly, there is a piece of meat called bottom meat shaved from the hind leg, which can also be used to make sweet and sour pork. Today we will use pork tenderloin as the main ingredient and talk to you about it. After selecting the pork tenderloin, we will cut the pork slices according to the texture of the pork. When frying pork, always cut against the grain, and never cut along the grain, because the meat fibers will be longer if cut along the grain. After frying, the meat will be harder and not easy to chew, so when slicing the meat, be sure to cut along the texture of the pork. We first cut the pork slices into about 3-4 mm thick. The pork slices cannot be cut too thin. If they are cut too thin, they will be burnt when fried. If they are cut too thick, they will not be crispy enough when fried. Therefore, it is most appropriate to cut pork slices into about 3-4 mm.

Then comes the choice of starch. In Northeast China, potato starch is generally the most suitable. Corn starch or other starches must not be used. Because dishes fried with corn starch will soften quickly when exposed to sweet and sour sauce, corn starch is not used to make sweet and sour pork. On the other hand, potato starch will not soften quickly when exposed to sweet and sour sauce after frying. Sweet potato starch is not as crispy as potato starch and the skin is more crispy. Therefore, potato starch is the first choice for making sweet and sour pork in Northeast China! To make sweet and sour pork, first soak the potato starch in water until the starch absorbs all the water. Let the starch sit for ten minutes, pour out the water, leaving a little water in the bowl. The starch at the bottom will be relatively solid, so you can use a little water to mix and loosen the soaked starch. Put the sliced ​​meat in a large container, and then put the soaked starch on the meat. Continue to stir slowly until the surface of the meat slices is evenly coated with starch.

The starch should be of the right consistency so that it takes two to three seconds for the meat slice to fall into the bowl when you lift it. If the starch falls off too quickly, it means that the starch is too thick. If it falls off too slowly, it means that the starch is too dry. If the starch is too wet, the starch will be less, and the fried meat slices will easily become dry. If the starch is too dry, the starch on the outside of the fried meat slices will be thicker, affecting the taste!

After the meat slices are coated with wet starch, pour salad oil into the pot. The amount of oil should be sufficient so that the meat can be fried to achieve better results. Heat the oil until it is 70% to 80% hot. Put the meat slices evenly coated with starch into the oil pan one by one and fry them. Slowly add the meat slices along the edge of the pot. There are about ten pieces of impurities in one pot at most. Put the meat slices into the oil pan, do not turn them over at first, wait for one minute, and then stir with a hand spoon. If you use a hand spoon to turn the meat slices as soon as they are put into the pot, they will easily stick together. If you turn the meat slices over after a minute, they will already have a crispy crust and will not stick together. If some pieces of meat are stuck together, just tap them gently with a hand spoon and a slotted spoon to separate them. After frying for two or three minutes, use a colander to scoop out the meat slices. After the oil temperature rises to 70% to 80% hot again, fry the meat slices again for 2-3 minutes. While the meat slices are frying, you can prepare a small bowl and put a spoonful of sugar in it, which weighs about 50 grams. Then add 2/3 spoonful of white vinegar, which weighs about 40 grams. Then add about one to two grams of salt. Salt is the soul of making sweet and sour pork, because salt plays a comprehensive role in this dish. If pure white sugar and white vinegar are mixed together, it will taste greasy. If a little salt is mixed in, the sweet and sour pork will taste more mellow! In addition, it is customary to add a spoonful or half a spoonful of ketchup to the sweet and sour pork made in Liaoning Province, while in Harbin area in Northeast China, ketchup is not added, only a mixture of sugar, vinegar and salt. This is also the difference between Liaoning Sweet and Sour Pork and Heilongjiang Sweet and Sour Pork. But comparing the two, Liaoning's sweet and sour pork may have a richer taste due to the addition of tomato sauce. Harbin sweet and sour pork does not contain tomato sauce, which makes the meat more delicious when eaten, so the two have their own merits.

The sweet and sour taste of Liaoning, Guobaorou and Heilongjiang Guobaorou are basically the same, the only difference is whether ketchup is added. Use a hand spoon to slowly stir the prepared sweet and sour sauce up and down until the sweet and sour in the sauce is fully dissolved. Pour the fried meat slices into the colander. At this time, we will clean the pot, because sometimes some burnt starch will sink to the bottom of the pot and stick to the edge of the pot under the fried meat slices, which will easily produce black spots when cooking. In order to ensure that the dishes are beautiful, we usually clean the pot, then turn it to high heat, put a little oil in the pot, and when the pot is very hot, add shredded green onion, ginger, garlic slices, shredded carrots and coriander (only the stems, not the leaves). These five ingredients are standard for sweet and sour pork. The pan should be hot at this time, put the meat slices in immediately, pour in the sweet and sour sauce, turn the pan over about 3 to 5 times and then serve! This step is called cooking the sauce, and the sweet and sour sauce should be quickly atomized. Only then can you make delicious pot-baked pork!