Sweet And Sour Pork With Pineapple

OK, here is the recipe I promised you yesterday.
It is the easiest Chinese recipe I have ever seen.

Ingredients:
- pork about 1lb, you can use rib or just pork meat, cut them into 2" cubes.
- a can of pineapple, drain it, you can keep the sauce for other desert recipe.
Seasonings:
- salt, 1 tsp
- sugar, 1 tsp
- Chinese vinegar, 1tbsp
- tomato sauce, 5 tbsp
- soy sauce, 2 tbsp
- some scallion, sliced ginger, and all purpose flour

Step 1:
Put pork cubes, soy sauce, salt, scallion and ginger in a bowl, mix together.
If you are using fresh pineapple, you can slice it or cube it now.

Step 2:
put some oil in a hot pan, (I used canola oil in a nonstick pan), on medium high. Coat the pork cubes with flour, and fry them for about 5 minutes. (I used about 1" deep oil, so had to turned the pork cubes once, so needed more frying time.) Take the pork cubes out when they are golden on all sides. Once all of the cubes fried, turn on the heat to high, and put them back into the pan and fry again, for 3 minutes this time. This way, the outside won't be too dry, and the inside will be totally cooked through. Drain them.

Step 3:
Use the same nonstick pan, this time only add about 2-3 tbsp oil. (I used the oil from step 2). Wait until the oil is hot, add tomato sauce, sugar, Chinese vinegar, and just a little bit of water. Stir, when you see the sauce is thickening, and there are some bubbles, put the fried pork and the pineapple back in. Turn them, make sure they are all covered with the sauce. Put everything in your favorite plate, and you are done.

How easy was that! And it was my first try with this recipe, it turned out sooooo delicious! This recipe is from one of my favorite Chinese recipe book I bought several years ago on sale. I LOVE IT! I will post more recipes soon. Frankly, I never follow recipes exactly. With Chinese cooking, you can adjust seasonings to your taste. It's not rocket science, just try and have fun.

I totally forgot there is a Chinese New Year celebration at my hospital lobby today, so didn't bring my camera. It was quite nice! There were two lions, a golden yellow one and a black one. During a lion dance, people always focus on the head, of course, it's very colorful, and eyelids can move, and they got to spread around the oranges and cabbages. But for me, I like to watch the guy playing the tail. It's harder, since he has to bend his body all the time, he cannot really see anything but the guy in front of him. He has to move his feet with the head guy, not exactly same speed or steps, but somehow make it look like it's a real animal, with some jumping and turning. And occasionally, he has to lift up the head guy to do some trick. When the head spins, he has to turn around really quickly, without exposing himself. Trust me, it's really hard. If there is a Chinatown in your city, please go and experience it yourself. Only then, you can feel the rhythm and the energy, and learn to appreciate it as a wonderful form of art.