SWEET AND SOUR PORK

I love this dish, but hardly made it, mostly ordered it when we dined at Chinese restaurants or take out. Today I decided to make it, I got the idea when I saw a member at cooking forum cooked it for their dinner, and it got on my mind, so today on my morning walk, we went to the store, got some pork chops, a family pack, so I got a good deal, and I saved some for later use..

I had almost everything I needed in my pantry except canned pineapple, so I just went without it...

- 4 thin pork chops, cut in small bite size, marinate with 1 tbsp of garlic oil (or cooking oil but add finely chopped garlic) + 1 tbsp of soysauce or fish sauce + 1 tbsp of cornstarch + 1 tbsp of rice wine, let it sit for few hours

- for the batter: 1/4 cup of flour + 1 tbsp of cornstarch + 1/2 tsp baking soda + 1 jumbo white egg + 1 tbsp of cooking oil + 1/2 tsp of salt + 1/2 cup of water

batter 

- for the sauce: - 1 inch of ginger, thinly sliced,
                        - 1/4 onion, finely chopped
                        - 1 cup of frozen vegetable, carrot and peas
                        - handful of snow peas
                        - colorful red and yellow peppers
                        - jicama or water chestnut, cut in small cubes
                        - small chunk of pineapple (optional)
                        - 1/2 cup of tomato ketchup
                        - 1/4 cup or 1/2 lemon juice
                        - 1 cup of pineapple juice (optional) or water
                        - salt, and sugar
                        - 1tsp of cornstarch to thicken

Method:
- batter: mix well all the ingredients, it should form thick batter
- heat 1 inch oil to 350'F, dip pork in the batter, shake off the excess batter, dip it in the hot oil, fry until golden brown, drain and set aside, fry in batches, not too crowded in the pan, after all done, put them in preheat oven, bake for few minutes while making the sauce (to make sure that all the pork are cooked)
- heat 2 tbsp of oil, sautee ginger and onion until fragrant
- add all the veggies and the rest of ingredients, salt and sugar to taste, lastly add cornstarch to thicken the sauce

To serve, arrange pork in a serving plate, pour sauce on top of it, serve with warm steamed rice

Serving 2 to 3 persons

The whole meal cost me about $5, it's a very good deal compares with 2 orders in Chinese restaurants, and I dare say... the taste is as good as what we can get in the restaurants...  the batter is so crunchy, even sometimes I got the hard batter at the restaurant :(